Skyway Piers: An Overlooked, Waterfront Fishing Highway

Eleven hours of sun exposure has broiled the family from Brandon. Their skin is red and dry and sizzling. Ten medium-heavy fishing poles line up toward Tampa Bay like an Army National Guard, holding firm in a gusting southeast wind.

Nearby, a few toys and a blue chalk stick lie on the scratched-out details of a child's imagination.

Such is life at the concrete beach.

Roger Hawk's black, curly hair dances with the wind under a black bandana with fluorescent skull and crossbones. The 10 poles he's put out at the longest fishing pier in the world, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge south fishing pier, are not snagging any Spanish mackerel. His nose snatches open-air saltwater.

Used to be Hawk would fish the wooden piers on the sides of the Gandy Bridge. Those piers are closed. So Hawk brought his wife Debra and stepdaughter Stephanie down I-75 and across I-275 to the south pier at 7901 U.S. 19 S.

“There ain't hardly any places you can go,” Hawk said. “This was only about a 45-minute drive.”

As fishing options in the Bay area seem to diminish with strict regulations, closed piers and expensive fuel prices, one option remains – the Skyway Fishing Pier State Park, which includes the 3-mile-long south pier and 1 1/2-mile north pier.

Cost is $4 per vehicle or $12 for "oversized" vehicles or slide campers. Children under 5 are free; children ages 6 to 11 are $2.

The feeling of being on a barge accompanies a trip to the piers. Far from Terra Ceia Island to the south and St. Petersburg to the north, you are suspended in the middle of the vast bay, almost stranded. Masses of undulating water, funneling schools of bait fish from the coasts, roll beneath your feet.

Kingfish this week stocked the bait and made their year-opening introduction to both piers. Chunks of Spanish mackerel have been a popular and convenient bait. The macks are thick these days. Grouper, shark, tarpon and cobia are other popular species to be caught. Bait shop attendants are happy to dole out fishing tips. And history.

The piers were created from sections of the old Skyway bridge that collapsed into Tampa Bay after a freighter ran into it in 1980. The piers are comprised of east and west spans that once served two lanes of traffic in each direction. What remained of the wreckage from the center span of the old bridge was submerged near each end of the current piers, making for artificial reefs that tend to hold grouper and mangrove snapper.

The spans were cut in half in 2008. The Florida Department of Transportation and Florida Department of Environmental Protection closed the eastern spans of both piers, including the 1 1/2-mile north stretch in Pinellas County, citing safety issues with the aging spans.

In order to let the tide carry bait out to various grouper holes, anglers would fish an incoming tide on the eastern span.

“You have to fish grouper on the outgoing tide now,” Hawk said. “The incoming was better.”

But the family from Brandon did not complain. They caught three keeper Spanish mackerel, a sting ray and some mean sunburns (the Hawks say that's a good thing.) They also watched the U.S. Coast Guard practice midday rescue missions.

“They were jumping in and out of the water, practicing their routine,” Debra Hawk said. “Normally we'd be fishing for freshwater fish in a river. This is different.”

For more than 20 years, the park has been open to anglers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, offering bait shops, rest rooms and, before the eastern spans were closed, more than 700 parking spots. Oversized trucks and RVs no longer are allowed on the piers due to new traffic patterns following the spans' closure.
The eastern spans have not been demolished.

The western spans, built in 1971, have not yet reached the end of their 50-year service life.

Bay area anglers sometimes forget what lies in their backyard, these piers that stretch across more fishing spots than any on this spinning dirt ball.

The sun is about to flip the switch on day, and the Hawk family is packing up the poles. They're ragged. Wind-pummeled. Sun-sapped.

Back to Brandon.