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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.

What each one does, and what reduces it ↓

FishingHQ describes what this place is, not whether you may fish it. Access, permits and who to ask.

What you can catch here

Documented at this place, grouped by how you would be fishing, with how strongly the sources support each one. This is what has been written down, not a forecast, and being listed is never permission to fish.

From the shore · 8

What these strengths mean
Regular local target
Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
Seasonal
Well supported, and concentrated in part of the year rather than spread through it.
Recorded here
At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
How breadth is counted
A fish documented at six marks is shown as six marks: breadth never raises the strength on its own. A fishery account describes the fishing; a recorded catch reports one specific catch. How evidence is weighed.

Also associated with this ground

Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.

Atlantic mackerel · European sea bass

Fish documented nearby, not here

Nothing below has been documented at Tynemouth North Pier itself. Each one has been documented at a named place on the same ground, and the places are listed with it. Treat this as what the water around here holds rather than as a catch list for this mark.

Widely documented on this ground

Documented at three or more neighbouring places, fished a way this place is also fished. That is a pattern about the ground rather than about any one mark, and it is the closest this site comes to saying you will probably meet a fish somewhere nothing has been written about.

From the shore

  • Ballan wrasse — documented at Craster and Cullernose Point; Embleton Bay; Dunstanburgh Castle rocks

Also documented at neighbouring places

One or two accounts each, on the ground around here. Enough to know the fish is caught in these waters; not enough to say anything about this place.

From the shore

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.

Baits and lures for these fish

The baits and lures each of the fish above is commonly taken on, from that fish’s own page. This is what works for the fish, not a report of what people use on this particular water — local knowledge and the conditions on the day still decide.

Baits

Lures

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.

Getting there

What public sources describe, last checked 2026-08-26. Car parks fill, services change and a path existing is not a path anybody may use — none of this is a guarantee of availability and none of it is permission to be anywhere.

Getting to it
A Grade II listed Victorian pier running nine hundred metres out from Tynemouth to a lighthouse at the seaward end, at the mouth of the Tyne. It is a working port structure rather than a public promenade, and the council's own tourism service says plainly that it cannot tell you when it is open: the PORT OF TYNE owns it, holds that answer, and should be asked before travelling rather than after arriving.
Where this access information comes from
  • Tynemouth Pier — Visit North Tyneside — North Tyneside Council (Local authority, harbour or protected-area body)Relied on for: The council's own statement that the Port of Tyne is the landowner, that visitors are advised to check current opening times with the Port before visiting, and that the pier runs nine hundred metres to a lighthouse.States this directlyPassage read and verified

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.

The months the sources attach to each species here. Where a species carries no season it is listed underneath rather than assumed to run through the year.

The months in which each species is recorded as caught at this location.
SpeciesJFMAMJJASOND
Atlantic cod — regular local target, recorded in October, November, December, January, February, March.
Dab — seasonal, recorded in April, May, June, July, August, September.
European flounder — seasonal, recorded in April, May, June, July, August, September.
European plaice — seasonal, recorded in April, May, June, July, August, September.
Whiting — seasonal, recorded in November, December, January, February.

Recorded here with no season stated: Saithe, Common sole, Pollack.

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.

Tynemouth North PierSouth Shields and the Tyne piersMarsden Bay and Camel IslandWhitburn and SouterSt Mary's Island, Whitley BayThe tidal TyneSunderland Roker PierHendon promenadeBlyth South Harbour breakwater
Tynemouth North Pier and the publicly documented places around it. Approximate positions, not marks. On a narrow screen the plot is wider than the screen and scrolls sideways inside its frame. Positions are approximate by design — they are capped at about a hundred metres and describe where a named public place is, not where fish are and not a mark. Everything plotted here is also listed below.

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
  • Tynemouth Pier — Visit North Tyneside — North Tyneside Council (Local authority, harbour or protected-area body)Relied on for: The council's tourism service naming the landowner and directing the access question to it.States this directlyPassage read and verified
  • Northern Bites — published club match results from north-east England marks — Planet Sea Fishing (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Published club match results from named north-east marks, giving the species caught, the numbers of each and the weights, on dated days.States this directlyPassage read and verified
  • British Sea Fishing: north-east England and Yorkshire shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The mark-by-mark Northumberland and Durham shore guide: which species are fished for at each mark, in which season, and with which baits.States this directlyPassage read and verified

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.

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