TWO fishermen were rescued from a beach near Watchet after rising tide trapped them on a rapidly-narrowing strip of shingle.

Minehead’s volunteer RNLI crew were called to the beach in Warren Bay on Friday evening when the fisherman became trapped.

Minehead lifeboat helmsman Richard Gay said: “They literally had nowhere to go. The tide was still rising, they couldn’t move along the beach in either direction and they had a crumbling cliff face at their backs.”

Both Minehead lifeboats were launched just after 7pm and located the men in a joint operation with Watchet coastguards.

The operation was made trickier because of a large submerged reef lying just offshore.

But said Mr Gay: “The coastguards were able to shine torches to show us a clear passage in to the beach, so we reached the casualties with no problems.”

The men, unharmed but shaken, were taken off the beach by the station’s smaller D-class boat, transferred to the larger Atlantic 85 and put ashore in Watchet harbour.

This spring has seen a succession of high tides caused by a rare alignment of the sun and moon.

Rescue services are warning anglers and Anglers and walkers using West Somerset to check tide times, particularly on the weekend of March 20-22 when more high-tides are expected.