Tynemouth North Pier
Pier · Salt water · in The north-east England coast
A massive stone breakwater running east from the north side of the Tyne mouth, with a rock and boulder apron along its outer face and dredged deep water in the river entrance inside it.
Safety: cold water shock — can cause serious injury or death. 3 more points apply here.
FishingHQ describes what this place is, not whether you may fish it. Access, permits and who to ask.
Also associated with this ground
Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.
Atlantic cod · Atlantic mackerel · European sea bass · Saithe · European plaice
How people fish it
Practised here: Sea fishing.
Methods the sources name for this ground. Each one is explained in full on its own page.
- Ledgering
Fishing a bait on the bottom held by a weight, with no float — the simplest way to fish at distance, in depth, or in wind.
- Float fishing
Suspending a bait at a controlled depth beneath a buoyant indicator — the most visual, most controllable and most widely applicable method in angling.
- Spinning
Casting an artificial lure and retrieving it so that it moves like something alive — the most direct form of lure fishing.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- A massive stone breakwater running east from the north side of the Tyne mouth, with a rock and boulder apron along its outer face and dredged deep water in the river entrance inside it.
- Exposure
- Fully exposed on the outer face to everything from north through east, and sheltered on the harbour side. The structure exists precisely because this river mouth is dangerous in an easterly, and it takes green water over the top in a heavy sea.
- Depth
- Deep water close in at the head; shallower and rougher along the inner arm.
- Tide and flow
- Strong ebb running out of the Tyne past the pier head, with an eddy inside the arm. The stream matters more than the tidal height here.
Through the year
Cod and whiting from autumn into winter and the reason most people fish it; mackerel and coalfish through summer; flatfish over the cleaner ground in between.
Safety
Cold water shock — Can cause serious injury or death
UK coastal and inland water is cold enough for most of the year to trigger the involuntary gasp and the loss of swimming ability that decides most immersion deaths, and it does so within the first minute, long before hypothermia is relevant.
What reduces it: Wear a buoyancy aid rather than carry one, carry a means of calling for help on the person rather than in a bag, and plan on the assumption that an unplanned entry into the water is survivable only if somebody knows immediately.
Slips, trips and falls — Can cause serious injury or death
A wet, weeded, seaward-sloping stone deck above deep water, with a fall into a sea running along a vertical wall that offers no exit and no landing.
What reduces it: Do not go out on the arm in a swell or an onshore blow, keep well back from the seaward edge, wear a flotation aid, and treat the structure as unusable rather than merely uncomfortable when water is coming over it.
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
A wave-cut platform gives an angler nowhere to go. A larger set arrives across flat weed-covered rock at sea level, with water on three sides, and a person knocked down slides on kelp into a gully or off the edge into cold water. Sets are irregular and a platform that has been dry for twenty minutes is not evidence about the next wave.
What reduces it: Watch the mark through several full wave-set cycles before walking out onto it. Wear a buoyancy aid. Do not fish a platform alone. Fix the exit and the time to leave before starting, and treat a rising sea as a reason to leave rather than to move back a few metres.
Worse when:
- Long-period ground swell arriving with little local wind, which produces far larger sets than the conditions suggest.
- Wet kelp, which offers effectively no grip.
- Darkness, when a set cannot be seen coming.
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
Scars flood from seaward and simultaneously from behind, as water rises through the gullies that cut them. The route back to the shore may be under water while the platform is still dry, which is the reverse of what somebody watching the sea in front of them expects.
What reduces it: Work out the return route and the time it is lost before going out, not after. Set a leaving time against the tide rather than against the fishing, and treat rising water in a gully behind you as the signal to go immediately.
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Shore angling in England is not rod-licensed, but access rights, landowner permission, local authority and harbour byelaws, national and inshore fisheries measures, and site designations all apply and all change. Check the current position with the relevant inshore fisheries and conservation authority, the harbour or local authority, and the landowner before going.
Particular to this water: This is an owned and operated structure. Whether angling is allowed on it, when, from where and on what terms is the operator's decision, is frequently seasonal, and changes without notice.
Who holds the answer:
- The Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority for the district, which makes and enforces inshore byelaws.
- The Marine Management Organisation, for national recreational sea fishing measures in English waters.
- The local authority and, where one exists, the harbour authority, for access, byelaws and shellfish classification.
- The relevant Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority for the district, which makes and enforces inshore byelaws including those on bait collection.
- The harbour authority or commissioners, for fishing from piers, breakwaters and harbour structures, where permission is a local matter and changes.
- Natural England and the relevant protected site body, where a designation affects access or collection.
- The Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the RNLI, for safety guidance on this coast.
- The Port of Tyne, as harbour authority for the river entrance and its structures.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- South Shields and the Tyne piers — under 2 km · Pier
- Marsden Bay and Camel Island — 2–5 km · Bay
- Whitburn and Souter — 5–10 km · Rock mark
- St Mary's Island, Whitley Bay — 5–10 km · Island
- The tidal Tyne — 5–10 km · River reach
- Sunderland Roker Pier — 10–25 km · Pier
- Hendon promenade — 10–25 km · Promenade
- Blyth South Harbour breakwater — 10–25 km · Breakwater
Sources for this place
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Long-running published description of British sea angling practice by region, ground type and named mark.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated public descriptions of which places are conventionally fished and how, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship, and not relied on for access, permission or any current rule.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- RNLI water safety guidance: cold water shock and Float to Live — Royal National Lifeboat Institution (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Cold water shock and the immersion response, tidal cut-off, and water-safety guidance for shore anglers and small-craft users.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Met Office shipping forecast, inshore waters forecast and marine warnings — Met Office, United Kingdom (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That inshore waters forecasts, sea state and swell are the operative inputs for shore and small-craft decisions in these waters.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.