What FishingHQ does and does not cover
FishingHQ teaches fishing intelligence, and documents the places people fish and what is reported caught there. It does not tell you what the rules are where you are standing, and it does not tell you whether you may fish a particular piece of water today. Both of those are deliberate, and both are held to consistently.
Places, and what a listing does not mean
FishingHQ documents publicly known fishing places and the fishing reported there. A place is here because it is publicly known fishing ground and because there is something durable to say about it: what the ground is, what has been reported caught, how people fish it, when, and how you get there.
Being listed is not permission to fish. A place appearing on this site does not establish any of the following:
- that fishing is currently permitted there
- that access is guaranteed
- that land access is public
- that a licence is sufficient on its own
- that local restrictions are unchanged
Check current access, permission, local regulations, closures and restrictions before you travel or fish.
Two things are still refused outright. FishingHQ does not publish marks somebody has kept quiet, and it does not publish precise coordinates that turn a description of ground into a set of directions to a specific piece of it. Both are checked on every page before it is published.
There is no regulatory database here
FishingHQ explains what a licence is, what a close season is for, why size limits exist and how method restrictions work. It does not state current dates, current limits, current prices or current permissions anywhere, for anywhere.
The reason is what can be kept true. A byelaw can change without anybody here noticing, and a reader who takes a stale rule off a page that looked authoritative and is then prosecuted has been badly served. So the record shape has nowhere to put a rule — the fields are what it is, why it exists, how it varies and who to ask — and every page that touches the rules carries a notice telling you to check the current position with the relevant authority and the water itself.
Every place also names the body that holds the answer for it. The rules and access section is written on that basis throughout.
What is covered, and what is coming
FishingHQ covers target species, disciplines, methods, bait, lures, tackle, knots, rigs, habitats, fishing places and the regions that hold them, explainers, history and culture, environmental topics, safety topics and the kinds of rule that apply. Rod fishing is the primary area and will receive most of the future depth; spearfishing is a first-class section; other fishing methods are covered for understanding rather than instruction.
Coverage is demand-led rather than taxonomic. Starting from taxonomy would produce a reference that is comprehensive about gobies and silent about pike, and starting from a gazetteer would produce a list of coastline rather than a guide to fishing it.