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Yarmouth Pier
Difficulty Rating: *
Accessibility:***** Variety of Fish:***** Parking: Pay
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As you leave you car in the ‘Pay to park’ car park at Lymington you enter the small terminal where you pay for your ticket to board the Isle Of Wight Ferry to Yarmouth. The parking is only £4.70 for 24 hours and ferry tickets are £10.40 adult and £5.20 junior return.
It takes about 30 minutes to cross to the Isle of Wight but the journey is lovely. To find out ferry travel times phone 08705 827744.
As you approach Yarmouth you can see the Pier jetting out towards you and the first thing that you notice is how perfect the pier is for angling. It has bait trays made of wood at intervals along the whole pier and at the end, a wooden cabin to offer you shelter if the weather plays up and lighting that comes on from dusk till dawn so you can see exactly what you are doing. When you exit the ferry you turn left out of the ticket office and after a very short walk through the town of Yarmouth you are at the start of the pier. There is a charge to fish the pier that has just come into effect recently of £3.00 per adult and I think it is £1.50 per junior.
A quick history lesson. Yarmouth pier was opened July 19th 1876 for the sole use of cross-Solent steamer traffic and is exactly 685ft (207.5m) long. End of lesson.
The tide can pick up to some amazing speeds at times so it is worth picking quite a small tide to fish from Yarmouth otherwise when there is a big tide run it is difficult to hold bottom and if you combine this with the weed of the summer months it is harder to fish. I believe I am correct in saying that Yarmouth piers high tide is exactly 1 hour before the Southampton’s docks.
I have found the sides of the pier to fish well, but, I don’t think you can beat the depths off of the end of the pier for both species and size of fish. I have had Pollock, Wrasse, Scad, Mackerel, Mullet, Cod, Bass, Pout, Smoothounds and Rays from this pier in all sorts of weather and at all times of the year. My biggest fish was a 12lb 9ozs Smoothound that I caught in July using a hermit crab for bait.
There are two ways of fishing from Yarmouth pier.
1, Pick a seasonal fish and fish for it as you would from the beach, if you are there in the summer and you fancy some Smoothound action, hook up a pennel rig with some crab and cast out to about 70 yards. This will mean you are probably out about 250 yards from the shore because you have already made up 180 yards with the pier or if you fancy a plate fish why not try a two hook rig with Ragworm as bait for the Black Bream or Bass?
2, Choose a selection of tackle from your gear and try a bit of everything, I had a mackerel trace tipped with mackerel strips on the feathers and landed 28 Scad on 1 hour then I switched two a ball lead and a rubber worm and ran it slowly up and down the pier legs with a hand line and caught a Pollock of 2lb 5ozs! That fish actually won me £10 in a side bet that I had with my friend Paul.
I have also watched the local’s fish with 2/0 hooks and 1 Ragworm and free line the worms under the pier for the Bass with a 1 oz ball lead just to get some depth from the worm. One old local came down and explained to me how he already had his potatoes in the oven and had just come down to get his Bass! Sure enough after 20 minutes of fishing he strolled back up the pier with his target fish, a Bass of 2lb 8ozs. You can actually see the Bass sat in pairs or groups on top of the submerged wooden structures under the pier; the trick is to get them to snap at your worm as most of the time they seam uninterested.
In short Yarmouth pier offers multi-species fishing in relative ease.
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Alan Shergold
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(The above mentioned information was written by Mr Alan Shergold on 14/10/2006. This information is to be used as a guide to help you find places to fish in your local area. Any damage to persons or persons property whether it be fishing gear, transportation or other is at the readers own risk and Mr Alan Shergold will not be held responsible. If you are in any doubt about your permission to fish any spot from Hampshire’s shore line make sure you contact the relevant authorities to check first.)
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