18. April 2025 5 min read

Shore fishing Sandy Grounds Saint Martin

Saint Martin offers some great spots for shore fishing. The Sint Maarten beaches are deep, just couple of meters from the sandy beach, which allows you to select even deeper running baits. Below is the list of beaches around Sandy Grounds where I fished and snorkeled to spot some of the target species.

Baie Nettle

The beach is located just in front of the Nettle Bay Beach Club and has a few rocky structures that are connected by a shallower, under 0.5 meter deep riff. Right next to this sea riff, you can find needlefish hunting ground as well as a few other game fish. Because the rocky structures extend more into the bay, you can also cast into deeper bay water, which is all 2 meters or more deep, before you hit the grass. I have spotted many more needlefish there between the sea grass and sandy patches. On nonwindy days, this is a perfect position for topwater fishing, but on windy days I would recommend deeper-running baits. There were a lot of fish in this area on the sunny days, and they all kept closer to the shore, because the beach is full of sargassum, so it does not have many people, and there are definitely very few swimmers. That is why fish come close to shore in very shallow water. The water overall was clear here, with sargassum holding most of the sand to the bottom, but there is a lot of sargassum floating on top, so you will have to clean your bait from time to time.

Baie Rouge

Rouge Bay beach is again a long sandy beach, but on the Northern side, there is a rocky structure just below the mansion. There you can cast in the Rouge bay or in the bay next to it, closer to Davids hole. Here I have mostly seen smaller fish, with some Rays in the sand, but also some groupers and other fish near the rocks. The beach is not completely secluded, so there are people in the water and near the rocks, but the other bay is empty. Some jet ski company seems to have a daily tour to these bays, so they tend to come in loud and fast for a few minutes, but are gone as fast. The water here was a bit murky on the days, but most of the time clear enough for a few meters of visibility, without any sargassum floating in.

Plum Beach

Plum Beach or Baie aux Prunes is a sandy beach, but it has rocks and boulders close to shore. That means more obstacles to get stuck, but it is also very deep and with a lot of fish which are near the shore, because further on the ground becomes sandy and fish avoid that. The water was murky here, but I was also here only once, so I cannot comment on how it is in general. Here I mostly saw medium-sized fish like groupers, which kept themselves closer to the bottom than at top water.