Snapper Fishing at the Sunshine Skyway Pier
Grab your fishing pole, we're headed to the pier!
On what would've probably just been a lazy Sunday around the house, I received a message from a friend seeing if I wanted to do a bit of fishing. Of course that sounded better than sitting around so we gathered our gear to head about an hour south to meet up with them at the Sunshine Skyway South Fishing Pier.
This pier is a very popular spot, especially on the weekends. Thankfully the threat of rain showers kept a lot of folks at home so it wasn't too crowded. Located at the bottom of Tampa Bay where the bay waters meet the Gulf of Mexico, this pier usually offers some quality fishing and a great backdrop of the Skyway Bridge.
Our target species here is typically mangrove snapper and sheepshead but you're also likely to catch many other species depending upon the spot you pick along what is known as longest fishing pier in the world. There are mirrored piers on both sides of the mouth of Tampa Bay which are actually the remains of the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge that collapsed in the 1980s due a large freighter that collided with one of it's pilings. As you can see above, a new bridge was constructed and the approaches of the old one were converted to fishing piers.
We started out using both full and cut shrimp on a 1/4 oz. jig head and caught a few fish but once we changed over to a fish finder rig with a size 1 mosquito circle hook we started catching a lot more fish. The trick here is lean far enough over the railing to locate a piling and drop your bait as close to it as possible without getting your line or hook snagged.
While the snapper we were catching were only about 8 to 9 inches on average they need to be at least 10 inches in length to keep inshore but we weren't here to harvest dinner anyways, just to have some fun fishing. My friends brought along this young guy and he was catching snapper one after the other!
I kind of lost count there for a bit because there were so many mangrove snapper being slung over the railing. I didn't really care that they were somewhat small because it's always fun when you feel that bite on the other end, especially on light tackle.
Besides all of the mangrove snapper we caught, there were a couple other species slung over the railing including this spanish mackerel.
Take a look at these chompers, you definitely want to keep your finger clear of these razor-sharp teeth when trying to get your hook out of their mouth!
Last but not least was the small gag grouper pictured above, it's amazing how hard even a small gag like this can fight compared to their size!
Storms began forming in the distance and just like the captain of the boat above it was time for us to get off the water so we decided to visit a local restaurant for a few cold adult beverages, some food and live music while we waited out the storm.
Thanks for stopping by, please upvote/resteem if you enjoyed this post!
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until next time...
What a wonderful post!! I'm so sorry I missed upvoting you (I did it anyway)! I've been traveling and crazy busy getting our Florida house ready for the Estate Sale. I love love driving over that Skyway bridge!!!
thanks! no worries, life happens. driving over that bridge is always fun....when it's not windy!
Very nice shots! No huge monsters, but it looks like some decent sized ones... Yeah, fish with teeth... The muskies and pike up here can do some damage too!
I would love to try the ale!
As long as the pole is bent it's fun and the beer never hurts either!
Grew up fishing the Skyway when I was younger. Brings back many memories slinging mackerel over the rail!
It can get crazy when the macks are running there!
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Really nice shots!
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Great picture! I like it 👍
You got an upvote, so it would be a nice gesture to follow this account for more upvotes in the future 👊🏼