Skip to content
FishingHQSearch

Whitsand Bay and Tregantle

Surf beach · Salt water · in The Cornish and Devon coasts

Four miles of steep sand and shingle beaches below high cliffs on the Rame peninsula, reached by paths down the cliff, with reef at both ends and a firing range above part of it. Big surf and a long climb back.

Safety: cold water shock — can cause serious injury or death. 2 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 · 7

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.
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.

Fish documented nearby, not here

Nothing below has been documented at Whitsand Bay and Tregantle 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

  • Conger eel — documented at The Plymouth rock marks; Hopes Nose; The Salcombe estuary (+10 more)
  • Pollack — documented at Rame Head and Penlee Point; The Polperro rock coast; The Port Quin to Port Isaac rock coast (+15 more)
  • Ballan wrasse — documented at Rame Head and Penlee Point; The Port Quin to Port Isaac rock coast; Prawle Point (+12 more)
  • Thick-lipped grey mullet — documented at Bolt Head and the Salcombe rock; The Salcombe estuary; Torquay harbour (+6 more)
  • Bull huss — documented at Nare Head; Padstow Bay and the Rumps; The Polperro rock coast
  • Atlantic mackerel — documented at The Polperro rock coast; Gorran Haven harbour wall; The Port Quin to Port Isaac rock coast (+15 more)
  • Thornback ray — documented at The Salcombe estuary; The Plymouth rock marks; The Tamar estuary (+1 more)
  • Gilthead bream — documented at The Salcombe estuary; Slapton Sands and Torcross; The Fal estuary
  • Garfish — documented at Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose; Nare Head (+3 more)
  • Black seabream — documented at Hopes Nose; The Salcombe estuary; Berry Head

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.

  • Surfcasting

    Casting heavy baited tackle from a beach into surf — a method defined by distance, by tide, and by reading water that all looks the same.

  • 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.

  • Spinning

    Casting an artificial lure and retrieving it so that it moves like something alive — the most direct form of lure fishing.

  • Kayak fishing

    A platform rather than a technique: quiet, shallow-draught access to water no other craft reaches, bought at the price of exposure, and a discipline where the decision not to launch is part of the skill.

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
Four miles of steep sand and shingle beaches below high cliffs on the Rame peninsula, reached by paths down the cliff, with reef at both ends and a firing range above part of it. Big surf and a long climb back.
Exposure
Fully open south-west into the Channel; this is a surf coast.

Through the year

Bass through the summer; cod and whiting through the winter.

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 — seasonal, recorded in November, December, January, February.
European sea bass — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September.
Whiting — seasonal, recorded in November, December, January, February.

Recorded here with no season stated: European flounder, European plaice, Pouting, Small-spotted catshark.

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.

Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death

The north coast's surf beaches carry strong rip currents, which run seaward through gaps in the sandbars and can take a wading angler off their feet and out beyond the surf line faster than they can walk back.

What reduces it: Do not wade deep in surf; learn to identify the calmer, darker, less-breaking channels that mark a rip and stay out of them; and if caught, do not swim against it — swim across the current parallel to the beach until out of it.

Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause injury needing treatment

Every access to these beaches is a steep and in places eroding cliff path, walked with tackle in both directions and often in the dark.

What reduces it: Use the maintained paths rather than desire lines, walk them in daylight first, and plan the climb out rather than the walk in.

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: Part of this coast lies below an operating military firing range whose danger area is closed when firing is scheduled. Firing times are published by the range authority and are not reported here.

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 national fisheries authority for England, for licensing of freshwater and migratory fishing and for fisheries enforcement
  • The relevant inshore fisheries and conservation authority for the district, which sets and enforces local sea fisheries byelaws
  • The body managing any marine protected area on the stretch concerned
  • The local authority environmental health service, for shellfish classification and public health closures
  • The harbour authority for working harbours and quays
  • The relevant estuary or river management body, where an estuary carries its own arrangements

Nearby fishing

Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.

Whitsand Bay and TregantleRame Head and Penlee PointPlymouth BreakwaterThe Tamar estuaryMount BattenThe Plymouth rock marksLooeNewton Ferrers and the YealmTalland Bay
Whitsand Bay and Tregantle 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
  • British Sea Fishing: south coast and south-west England shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Which species are fished for at each named shore mark on the English south and south-west coast, and in which season.States this directlyPassage read and verified
  • Places to kayak and fish in Cornwall — Cornish Kayak Angler (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That the named venue is one of the Cornish coastal locations a kayak angler's published venue list gives as kayak fishing ground.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysPassage read and verified

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

Share this page