NOTE: This is a collection of information I have collected from the net. Many thanks for the hard work put in by the authors, whoever they may be.
Gluyn B's notes.
The Point: Can get very busy but OK in the week.
RHS Point: Better surf.
Diamond: Walk to west end of powerstation and left onto beach http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=dungeness&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=18.723967,57.084961&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Dungeness&ll=50.9113,0.954123&spn=0.001216,0.004506&t=h&z=19
Bai: SW black lug + one dungy lug tailed with squid.
Rigs: 2 1/2 ft pulley rig 1/0 top 4/0 bottom. 5oz lead not breakaway they wont hold.
Method.
Cast every 15-20 minutes.The shingle will cover the line after 20 minutes making retrieve difficult.
Two black lug plus one dungie lug with a small squid tail.
Cast as far as you can 30 deg uptide to hold bottom.
Two rods low and high tide . One rod during the rip.
Tripod with bait tray for low water. Leave beach buddy as camp at top of slope.
Clothes: Take your floatation suit.
There are 4 main areas at Dunge, the boats, the point, the boards, the powerstation and anywhere in between. It gets very busy at weekends. Travel light and get away from the crowds, it wiill pay off.
Parking. For the boats....Drive over the minature railway towards lighthouse, on your left you will pass the lifeboat station, carry on to the 1st big laybye on your right (@600yds). Park here. Opposite is a concrete road that leads to the boats and beach.
For the point....you can do as above, but follow the concrete road to the end, At the end, cross left for the beach and then walk right, Look at the new lighthouse and line up the new lighthouse with the old, which is a short distance behind. You are now on the Point. It's the dustbin and if the stand on the point and line up the two light houses behind you it's directly in front of you. It's full of leader/leads/rigs as well as crap!
For the boards.... carry on driving round and past the new lighthouse and park on your right in the parking area( the britannia pub will be in front of you) You will see the boards behind you. follow to reach the beach.
For the powerstation... carry on driving past the pub to the end of the road. Park up. You will see a concrete road leading left alongside the powerstation wall towards the beach, walk along this road, you will come to a huge shingle bank in front of you. I suggest that if you take this option, climb the shingle bank at the first R/H bend on the concrete road.
The boats...ground is relatively clean sand
The point....Can be a bit of a tackle graveyard. A 100yd cast at L/W will put you in very deep water, an area they call the dustbin. This area is not for the novice angler.
The boards... Again the ground is pretty clean, with no real probs.
The powerstation... Again fairly clean ground.
There is a fair depth of water all over, Apart from left of the boats, and there is a strong tide run especially at the point. Runs R/L on the up.
3hrs either side of low water are in my opinion the 'hot times' to fish, but to be fair you can catch at any time.
No need for huge casts to contact the fish. Most of the time 30yds to 100yds or so will be ok.
2/3 hook flappers or pennel/pulley rigs for the bigger fish. Breakout leads in various sizes are required, Occassionally nose grip leads are required.
Fresh black lug is 'king' at dunge.
At present, its mostly Whiting being caught, with a few Codling mixed in and a few Pout. At night you will be plagued by Whiting..... unless the cod have arrived in force and pushed them out.
Denge is not unlike Dunge but in my opinion Denge is more of a high water mark i.e. 3hrs either side of HW. You will catch similar species re Dunge.
The 'thinking angler' may want to consider fishing Denge over the HW, then driving around the corner to Dunge to catch the ebb!!
Hope this helps you Nick. If you want to know more, just ask.
If you need fresh black lug or squid etc, try Richardsons Fish shop at Dungeness. 01797320789.
DUNGENESS
The hallowed waters of Dungeness attract anglers all year round from near, far and further!
The season really kicks off in October but the codling can show in numbers from the big tides of September if accompanied by SW winds and colour in the water.
The best of the codling run is usually over by Christmas, but good fishing can be had through to April if conditions are right. By "conditions" we mean coloured seas and SW storms.
Late December/January sees the influx of Dabs which can be of dinner plate size and 1lb fish are not exceptional.
February and March, if the seas are calm can see dabs and rockling in record numbers, with fishing tailing off as the weeks progress.
April can see the last of the cod and the first of the bass. Late March/April can see some superb Bass fishing as the spring run comes through. When they are there they are there, if they aren't!
May/June are the quiet months with the chance of a bass, doggie, dab.
July - August can see huge shoals of Mackerel pushing whitebait right onto the beach. Good numbers of Gars as well and underneath them all can be some very good bass. A live bait under your feet at night when the water is clear is deadly, as can be the head and guts of a mackerel. Good sole can be had to small hooks and worm baits.
That being said, monster sole can show up right through the winter, with many a personal best sole being found impaled on a 4/0 Pennell rig loaded with lug and squid intended for a winter cod and a 15lb cod was caught in August 2009 on a Bluey bait intended for bass!
At Dungie, if you've a bait in the water, you can never really be sure what may come along next!
The following is a selection of different anglers advice on Dungeness:
By Spratdab.
There are 4 main areas at Dunge, the boats, the point, the boards, the power station and anywhere in between.
It gets very busy at weekends. Travel light and get away from the crowds, it will pay off.
Parking. For the boats....Drive over the miniature railway towards lighthouse, on your left you will pass the lifeboat station, carry on to the 1st big lay bye on your right (@600yds). Park here. Opposite is a concrete road that leads to the boats and beach.
For the point....you can do as above, but follow the concrete road to the end, At the end, cross left for the beach and then walk right, Look at the new lighthouse and line up the new lighthouse with the old, which is a short distance behind. You are now on the Point.
For the boards.... carry on driving round and past the new lighthouse and park on your right in the parking area ( the Britannia pub will be in front of you) You will see the boards behind you. follow to reach the beach.
For the power station... carry on driving past the pub to the end of the road. Park up. You will see a concrete road leading left alongside the power station wall towards the beach, walk along this road, you will come to a huge shingle bank in front of you. I suggest that if you take this option, climb the shingle bank at the first R/H bend on the concrete road.
GROUND
The boats...ground is relatively clean sand.
The point....Can be a bit of a tackle graveyard. A 100yd cast at L/W will put you in very deep water, an area they call the dustbin. This area is not for the novice angler.
The boards... Again the ground is pretty clean, with no real probs.
The power station... Again fairly clean ground.
There is a fair depth of water all over, Apart from left of the boats, and there is a strong tide run especially at the point. Runs R/L on the up.
3hrs either side of low water are in my opinion the 'hot times' to fish, but to be fair you can catch at any time.
No need for huge casts to contact the fish. Most of the time 30yds to 100yds or so will be ok.
2/3 hook flappers or Pennell/pulley rigs for the bigger fish. Breakout leads in various sizes are required, Occasionally nose grip leads are required.
Fresh black lug is 'king' at dunge.
At present, its mostly Whiting being caught, with a few Codling mixed in and a few Pout. At night you will be plagued by Whiting..... unless the cod have arrived in force and pushed them out.
Denge is not unlike Dunge but in my opinion Denge is more of a high water mark i.e. 3hrs either side of HW. You will catch similar species re Dunge.
The 'thinking angler' may want to consider fishing Denge over the HW,
then driving around the corner to Dunge to catch the ebb!!
By Matchman:
Best months for cod fishing on the 'point' is Oct to Jan, tides- making from neaps onto springs but give the big springs a miss as generally there is to much tide and occasionally weed to make for comfortable fishing, personally I like to fish a mid tidal range tide ,say a 6.2 to 6.6 mtr high ,local tide charts, an hour before low up to 3 hours after low, i.e. before the flood tide really sets in, but that would be on the power station side of the point. Or fish again an hour after high to 4 hours down on the 'trawlers' side of the point.
These are just personal preferences gleaned after fishing Dungeness man and boy for 45 years, but I dare say others will have their own preferences.
These times/tides are not set in stone, whichever side of Dungeness point You fish in it is fairly deep water, therefore cod can and do come out at all stages of the tide, but as a general rule of thumb the times quoted by me work for me. Preferably fish midweek as over the weekend in the 'cod season' it can be uncomfortable fishing with the point being shoulder to shoulder.
Dealing with the weed:
The weed can at times be a real pain, with 2 foot snakes on your leader knots which take 5 minutes to clear if you don't resort to a knife and a re-tie. Solution one- Don’t bother fishing!
Solution two- keep your rod tips high and out of the first 2 breakers. Reduce your mainline to 12lb on multipliers when fishing clean ground and use tapered shock leaders, Have a spare rod setup, with baited trace and do a 'quick turn round'. For those using fixed spool reels load a spare spool with 20lb braid and 60 lb shock leader, do not use tapered leaders with braid though, you will not get much back!
Fit Diamite tip rings, helps chop the weed on the leader knot as it comes through tip ring. Use a leader at least 2 to 3 times longer than normal, keeps your catch out in the water beyond the first wave as you clear the crap from your leader knot.
As you bring the weedy leader knot up the beach slap the rod a few times, helps knock the crap off.
If you don’t fancy any of these tried and tested methods resort to the old standby of 30lb straight through, not the best idea as the weeded trace will eventually 'pull out', but makes life a lot easier when you get your gear back on the beach.
The weed be will at it's worst when the tide is at it's strongest. If it's really bad, have a break for half an hour and try again, then have another break etc. The best fishing is often at the start and end of the tide run so hang in there.
If the weed is so bad you can't face another cast, either drive round to Dengemarch or to be really sure of avoiding the weed, go to Hythe.
Fishing for the Cod:
It is this fish which draws thousands of anglers to Dungeness every winter. Big baits and BIG hooks, 40lb+ snoods so you don't lose the big one and pray for dirty water.
The cod can show at any distance, but often the further the better. The main limitation to distance is the strong tide run and weed, but at slack water/easier tides, the further you cast the better your chance, especially in daylight. All you'll really need bait wise is fresh or wrapped lug, squid or baby cuttle. A live bait rig (a 2/0 - 4/0 fixed Pennell will do) will often sort out a decent fish when the whiting are robbing your bait and masking your hooks! The cod can show anywhere, however 200y either side of the point is regarded as the place to be by many.
Fishing for the Bass:
Early season, by which I mean March - June, big fresh lug baits are best, fished at anything from 20y-100y so vary your distance. You can not fish too close for the bass so don't be afraid of dropping a bait under the rod tip.
The bass can show up anywhere along this stretch of coast, but to the left of the point or behind the power station, near the boils are regarded as the best areas.
A very reliable shot is between the lifeboat station and the boats. Fish this area from an hour or so after low water, starting just as the water hits the shingle. The bass will be there for an hour or so before they follow the tide into the bay to your left. Once the bites stop (if they ever started), that is it for that tide usually. In the summer if the water is clear, you can catch up to just after high water, but only if there are bait fish in front of you. If they are there, you will see them!
This area can also be worth a shot for the cod in the winter if a westerly or wsw gale makes the point area unfishable. The water here gets very dirty because of the mud and is as productive in daylight as at night.
Once, sorry if, the summer arrives and the water clears ,the mackerel arrive. This is the time for live bait or mackerel head and guts under the rod tip. Best at night and best over high tide slack water. Try to stay away from other anglers, stay quiet and keep all lights to a minimum.
During daylight, try drifting a live mackerel 20 yards out under a big float. If you fish behind the power station you should have a bit more room and will be able to "walk" the float with the tide and cover some ground.
Generally, unless we have had a decent few days of settled weather and offshore winds, the water will be too coloured to live bait. If the water is dirty, stick to lug baits and big fish baits.
Sole Fishing:
Best months are July - October with September seeing the peak. As with the bass, sole can show up anywhere but behind the power station is generally regarded as the best area. Size 4 hooks and half a lugworm fished hard on the bottom (keep the rod tip low and snoods short) will give you best chance. Vary your distance between under the rod tip to as far out as possible. If you are lucky enough to catch one, try to cast to the same spot again.
An hour before dusk and dawn are "hot" times for the sole. In summer, a sensible option is to fish one rod for sole and a second for bass, utilising the ready supply of small whiting that your sole rod will catch as live bait.
The Whiting!
are there in numbers 12 months of the year and can be a real pest when targetting sole or cods. Keepers show from September to March and a good feed can be had with big bags of 10oz fish. Occasionally the bigger ones show but you have to wade through a lot of small ones to get to them. A 3 hook flapper at any distance loaded with worm, squid, mackerell or pretty well any recognised sea bait will see the rod tip rattling all night long.
Dabs:
Present all year round, the big boys come out to play in late December and are there in numbers for a few weeks. Daytime is often more productive than night as the pin whiting are less ferocious in finding the bait first. The dab fishing tends to coincide with the arrival of the sprats, which you will often find washed up on the beach in their hundreds as high tide approaches. A 3 hook paternoster with size 1 - 1/0 hooks loaded with lug will usually see a few fish in the bucket. When the sprats are around, try half a sprat on each hook to sort out the bigger dabs. When you start catching more rockling than dabs, the winter season is officially past it's best.
Other species:
Dog fish are a regular visitor to Dungeness but you can go a few weeks without seeing one as well. They are never there in "pest" numbers and more than a couple in a session is rare. Decent sized flounders can be had behind the lifeboat station and up to a few hundred yards to it's right as you look at the sea. Virtually any fish that swims in the English Channel "can" show up at Dungeness, but Cod, bass, whiting, dabs and sole are the mainstay and will make up 99% of the catches.
Day or night?
As with most venues, darkness sees more fish on the beach than during daylight. The water can become very coloured, especially after a S or SW blow when day time tides can be just as productive. After a big storm, walk the high water mark with a bucket and collect the queenies, razors and sometimes big black lug that you'll find washed up. Generally speaking, the nocturnal angler will catch twice the number of fish of a daytime angler, you'll have a bit more room as well!
High tide or Low tide?
The nearer the point, the deeper the water so is reliable at most states of the tide. The fish can show at any state of the tide, with the ebb fishing best one day, the flood best the next. Most regular Dungeness anglers have a preference for one or the other with a fairly even split on preference.
Tackle requirements:
The tide run at Dungie can be a monster, even on some of the smaller tides, if the wind is from the east or west it can really push the water through.
Come armed with a selection of leads between 150g breakaways all the way up to 210g fixed wires (if your rod can handle it!).
To cope with the tide and weed, a minimum main line of 15lb is recommended with a longish shock leader as matchman advised above.
DO NOT come expecting easy fishing and to be able to fish two rods whilst standing 5 yards away from your mates, the tide will knit your lines into a lovely net which will get dragged round in the tide until it finds a snag and you'll lose all your gear. Use big leads and cast uptide. This often involves walking 30y uptide before you cast, then walk back to your rest and let a large bow of line run down with the tide before you allow everything to tighten up. This will give your lead a chance to dig in and set before the tide carrys everything away down tide until it finds the nearest snag.
If you're unlucky enough to find yourself on a busy beach and in a spot loaded with snags but no room to move away, put on a fixed wired lead and a lead lift, let out plenty of line and real like the clappers when you reel in.
KEY FOR THE GATE:
Join DAA for £5 and get access to the small road that leads to the point. You can Join at Seagull Tackle or Richardsons. This can save you a walk of a couple of hundred yards or further if the beach is busy.
Tackle and bait:
Mick's Tackle...AKA Matchman. Bait pumps R US. http://uk-fishing.com/micks-tackle-hythe.html
1 Thirlestane Terrace,
Dymchurch Road,
Hythe, Kent
CT21 6LB
Tel: 01303 266334
Seagull Tackle:
The Parade, Greatstone,
New Romney, Kent,
TN28 8NP
Tel: 01797 3668374
Dens Tackle, Hythe. http://www.denstackle.com/
73 DYMCHURCH ROAD, HYTHE,
KENT CT216JN
TELEPHONE - 01303 267053
FAX - 01303 267053
EMAIL -
Richardsons, http://www.dungenessfish.co.uk/ (Bait and limited tackle)
Battery Road,
Dungeness,
Romney Marsh,
Kent.
TN29 9NJ
Telephone: 01797 320789
Colin who sells fresh and frozen lug. He lives opposite the lifeboat station at Dunge. 01797 321138
TIDES:
http://www.easytide.com/EasyTide/Eas...px?PortID=0087
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/tides/?port=0012
WEATHER:
http://www.windguru.com/int/index.php?sc=47919
http://www.xcweather.co.uk/
KEEP IT CLEAN!!!!
Dungeness is a nature reserve and is visited by thousands of bird watchers and ornathologists evey year. It is imperative that you take every scrap of litter home with you, otherwise one day we may see access severely restricted. If you see other peoples litter, that is no excuse for leaving your own. Good anglers always take a bit more home with them than they bought with them!
Beach etiquette
Dungie can get very busy, especially when the codling arrive. If you think the gap you are about to squeeze into looks a bit tight, it probably is! Ask your neighbours if they mind you squeezing in. They will very rarely say no and at least you will be on speaking terms when you start tangling their lines.
Safety and Security
As with most places these days, common sense applies to your cars/vans. If you have to leave valuables in the motor, it is by far safer to invest £5, join DAA and get a key for the gate. You can then fish in the knowledge that it is exceedingly unlikely to be broken into and will be behind a locked gate for most of your session.
If you must park on the main Dungie road, do not leave any valuables in the car and certainly nothing in view. Break in's, although rare, do happen. Should you be unfortunate enough to actually catch someone in the act, call the police and it is adviseable not to confront those involved.
Dungie is a steeply shelving shingle beach with deep water a rod length out at most states of the tide. In a big swell, set your gear up well away from the waters edge in case of a rogue bigger wave and avoid standing in the surf at all. The undertow and shifting shingle can easily see you losing your footing. Safety first, fishies second!
DIRECTIONS:
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?bundle...&moveMap=0, 0
If you are arriving from New Romney, the turning into the point is on your left just after you cross the railway line. If travelling from Llydd, it's just on your right after you've passed the first houses after driving a mile past the enterance to the power station.
More Tips:
The Point: Line up the two light houses and stop when you get to the sea. If you get to the sea and everyone is talking Welsh, you've had a very long walk and gone the wrong direction!
The fabled Dustbin: Used to be an eddy off the point. The changing shape of the beach over the years and the shingle defences for the power station have done away with this feature. The dutbin my friends is no more.
Snags by Steve F
The snags at Dungie are mostly line snags. One of the best way for you to add to the snag is to use gemini type clips as these will catch in to the line snag. I overcome this by using a strong 100lb+ swivel on the leader and tie the gemini clip on my trace. Therefore the clip is upside down and will not catch lost line. I use a breakaway fastlink again tied upside down the attach the lead. You could use a gemini and over it with a small lenght of 3mm rubber tubing
The use of fixed softwired wire leads such as those made by breakaway will again pull through the line snags and retrieve easy. Normal breakaway type leads will get stuck fast in the snags.
DAA run matches at the point and behind the powerstation. Please pm me (Steve F) with your email address and I will keep you updated on future events.
Brickie Lee says....
Dont know if this has been said but after a storm or high winds the "snags" shift spaces,the seabed changes, where u fished without losing gear one day u will the next, there is a whole load of debris down there that includes planes that were shot down in the war! also its best for cod fishing either the tide just after a big blow or the one after that.
U can acually see the dustbin at low water, the water has an eddy against the seabed n u can see the change in the water about 100 or so yds out
Best baits for cod are one thing really, massive lug baits on either a pennal or pully rig, although whole squid does catch its fair share (the unwashed variety), if using lug then 4 or 5 worms squished down to form a big bait is the key for cod/codling, also if fishing october or november this can also take a decent bass on the odd occasion.
Last cod season the best fishing was over low water but that can be subject to change, in all fairness u need to expect to do at least a 12 hour session to take most of the 2 tides ur gonna fish, that way u get to know when the best times to fish are.
Another thing to consider is the weather n wot part of dungie to fish, westerlies u'd be better off by the boats as the wind dont hit ya too much round the corner there, easterlies obviously the other side of the point for the same reason, anything northerly or southerly (in ya face) fish anywhere.
Big tides= big leads, no point going there with 5 n 6 oz leads, u need at least the namix 7's or gemini 8's, sometimes that dont even work if there is a big swell on the water, all u end up doing is walking miles along the beach just to retrieve ya gear...................
Go prepared for the worst n hope for the best..............
Good luck all n i may well see ya down on the hallowed pebbles of Dungeness
Another Frank:
use s**t leads as i have littered the sea bed with new impact leads as i always forget to take my own advice . On a serious note as long as there is a good colour in the water i think it fishes as well in daylight as it does in darkness as for tides i think 2hrs before low and 3hrs up seems to me to be the most productive .
Squiddly says "Dont forget to keep your bait and food underwraps..or that sly old fox will have it all including your catch". This is mainly at night, but the glowing eyes caught in the headlight have set the imagination off and running for more than one solitary night angler.
Ghosts of Dungeness! There are many reported scary sightings. Some have been the foxes, many are not! It is officially an eirie place to fish alone at 2am on a dark winters night. For those of you with a more "sensitive" disposition, I suggest you avoid the boats and the area to their left.
Last but not least, don't forget a bag for the fish!