Today we are in search of a fishing pier. Bob had read about one in St. Petersburg that we're going to check out.
We left about 10:30 under sunny skies with the temps heading towards 78 today. A perfect day to get out and do something. We headed south on 19 in search of a place to pull in some "big ones". After a 45 minute drive we pulled onto the Sunshine Skyway Fishing Pier.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge. The name evokes a lot of different feelings among residents in the Tampa Bay area. Many people have a feeling of pride because of the length, height, and unique appearance of the cable bridge that opened in 1987 crossing Tampa Bay. Others harbor a feeling of dread when crossing it because they remember the tragedy in 1980 when a freighter lost control in a storm, slammed into the bridge supports of the old steel and concrete bridge, and caused the collapse of the center span during rush hour. Fishermen in the Tampa Bay area are happy though, to be living in close proximity to the longest fishing pier in the world, The Skyway State Fishing Piers.
This is a picture of the newspaper clipping that was on the wall of building on the bridge that sells bait, t-shirts etc.
The car on the end of the bridge stopped just in time before driving off the end of the bridge. You can see the ship that caused the bridge to collapse.
The Skyway Fishing Piers were constructed by removing all the material from the center of the two original steel and concrete bridges, placing it in strategic locations both around the fishing piers and off shore in the gulf, and tying the dead ends of each of the spans together to create a three quarter mile long pier on the north and a one and one half mile long pier on the south side of Tampa Bay. Both are the width of the original four lanes of the two old bridges, and you can drive your car onto the pier and park it right next to the area that you wish to fish. Combining the capacity of the two piers, over one thousand vehicles can park easily, and both the north and south spans have four lanes of parking, roadway, and fishing area. This makes the north span a one and one half mile long fishing pier and the south span a three mile long fishing pier figuring both directions. This is quite a difference from the usual fishing piers where you may have to walk several hundred yards from your car to your fishing spot, carrying all the gear and bait that you need to fish with. At the end of the pier, there is a bait and tackle shop that has all the live and frozen bait that you will need for your day or night of fishing, as well as a complete line of fishing tackle. There are over a dozen picnic tables under a roof that will easily shelter over one hundred people. The south pier is the same but with two bait shops and clean bath rooms, and there is certainly enough stock on hand of food, tackle, and bait to keep thousands of fishermen happy. Both piers are maintained in a clean and well lit manner and the management is constantly roaming the piers to see that they are kept clean and that all the fishermen are served well.
Lots of room to fish!
See that blue water?
There's some B I G fish in that water!
I call this one....
Pelican sitting on concrete.
I don't think anyone will
fight over these drumsticks!
So there we are, our first day "out". It did seem strange to get the truck and go and not have Shag in the backseat, but time will help us with that.
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