Skyway Fishing Pier State Park

Skyway Fishing Pier State Park
IUCN category Ib (wilderness area)

Location	Pinellas and Manatee Counties, Florida, United States
Nearest city	St. Petersburg, Florida
Coordinates	27°40′41″N 82°40′41″W / 27.67806°N 82.67806°W / 27.67806; -82.67806Coordinates: 27°40′41″N 82°40′41″W / 27.67806°N 82.67806°W / 27.67806; -82.67806
Established	1994
Governing body	Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Facing north from the south span. New (Bob Graham) Sunshine Skyway Bridge appears on viewer's right.

Sunshine Skyway Bridge itself, viewed from the south.

Skyway Fishing Pier State Park is a Florida State Park located on the north and south sides of the mouth of Tampa Bay. When the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge was built on I-275 (US 19) after one part of the old bridge collapsed due to a ship collision, the approaches to the old bridge were turned into the longest fishing pier in the world. The bridge is lit at night, and the park is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The most common activity is fishing. Common catches include snook, tarpon, grouper, black sea bass, Spanish mackerel, king mackerel, cobia, sheepshead, red snapper and flounder. Snacks, drinks, bait, and fishing supplies can be purchased on the fishing pier, which charges an admission fee of $4.00 per car plus $4.00 per adult, $2.00 per child (6–12 years old) and free, children 5 and younger. Other activities include kayaking, swimming, wading, kite surfing and other miscellaneous water activities.

The piers, which can have excellent fishing, are very high above the water. This is not for everyone, so the area around the pier has many legal spots to fish from shore. From these spots one can access the edges of some deep channels (excellent for snook) and have lots of unfettered access to huge “flats” (shallow water) areas. These areas are usually less than chest deep at most high tides and hold red fish and spotted sea trout, most of the year. In the warmer months migratory fish move through the area including snook, cobia, tarpon, sharks, Spanish mackerel and in the deep water around the piers occasionally some kingfish.

In August 2008, Florida Department of Transportation officials announced that the eastern spans of the pier would be closed on August 29, 2008, for safety reasons. They were built in 1954, and after 50 years of corrosion and wear and tear, they had worn out. The western spans, built 17 years later, were still deemed safe to use.^[1]

Footnotes

↑ Minaya, Mariana (August 22, 2008), "Skyway Pier to Lose 2 Spans", Saint Petersburg Times, pp. B 1, retrieved August 23, 2008

Sources

http://www.skywaypiers.com/prices.html

Protected areas of Florida

Federal

National Parks	Biscayne Dry Tortugas Everglades

National Memorials	De Soto Fort Caroline

National Monuments	Castillo de San Marcos Fort Matanzas

National Seashores	Canaveral Gulf Islands

National Forests	Apalachicola Choctawhatchee Ocala Osceola

National Wildlife Refuges	Archie Carr Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee Caloosahatchee Cedar Keys Chassahowitzka Crocodile Lake Crystal River Egmont Key Florida Panther Great White Heron Hobe Sound Island Bay J.N. 'Ding' Darling Key West Lake Wales Ridge Lake Woodruff Lower Suwannee Matlacha Pass Merritt Island National Key Deer Okefenokee Passage Key Pelican Island Pine Island Pinellas St. Johns St. Marks St. Vincent Ten Thousand Islands

Other National Protected Areas	Big Cypress National Preserve Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve

National Estuarine Research Reserves and National Marine Sanctuaries	Apalachicola NERR Florida Keys NMS Guana Tolomato Matanzas NERR Rookery Bay NERR

State

Parks	Amelia Island Anastasia Avalon Bahia Honda Bald Point Big Lagoon Big Shoals Big Talbot Island Bill Baggs Cape Florida Bulow Creek Caladesi Island Camp Helen Cayo Costa Collier-Seminole Colt Creek Curry Hammock Delnor-Wiggins Pass Devil's Millhopper Don Pedro Island Eden Gardens Egmont Key Falling Waters Faver-Dykes Florida Caverns Fort Clinch Fort Cooper Fort George Island Fort Pierce Inlet Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou Gasparilla Island George Crady Bridge Fishing Pier Grayton Beach Henderson Beach Highlands Hammock Honeymoon Island Hontoon Island Hugh Taylor Birch John D. MacArthur Beach John Pennekamp Coral Reef John U. Lloyd Beach Jonathan Dickinson Little Talbot Island Long Key Lovers Key Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway Mike Roess Gold Head Branch North Peninsula O'Leno Oscar Scherer Perdido Key Sebastian Inlet Skyway Fishing Pier St. Andrews St. George Island St. Joseph Peninsula Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center Stump Pass Beach Tomoka Torreya Windley Key Fossil Reef

Botanical Garden Parks	Alfred B. Maclay Gardens Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Lignumvitae Key Ravine Gardens Washington Oaks

Lakes, Rivers and Springs Parks	Deer Lake Lake Griffin Lake June in Winter Scrub Lake Kissimmee Lake Louisa Lake Manatee Lake Talquin Alafia River Blackwater River Dunns Creek Econfina River Hillsborough River Little Manatee River Myakka River Ochlockonee River Oleta River Suwannee River Blue Spring De Leon Springs Edward Ball Wakulla Springs Fanning Springs Homosassa Springs Wildlife Ichetucknee Springs Lafayette Blue Springs Madison Blue Spring Manatee Springs Ponce de Leon Springs Rainbow Springs Silver Springs Three Rivers Troy Springs Weeki Wachee Springs Wekiwa Springs Werner-Boyce Salt Springs Wes Skiles Peacock Springs

Recreation Areas	Gamble Rogers Memorial

Museums, Historic sites, and Archaeological sites	Cedar Key Museum Constitution Convention Museum Forest Capital Museum John Gorrie Museum Ybor City Museum The Barnacle Bulow Plantation Ruins Dade Battlefield Dudley Farm Fort Foster Fort Mose Fort Zachary Taylor Gamble Plantation Indian Key Koreshan Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Homestead Natural Bridge Battlefield Olustee Battlefield Orman House Paynes Creek San Marcos de Apalache Yellow Bluff Fort Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins Crystal River Lake Jackson Mounds Letchworth-Love Mounds Madira Bickel Mound Mound Key San Pedro Underwater

Preserves and Reserves	Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Anclote Key Cedar Key Scrub Charlotte Harbor Crystal River Estero Bay Fakahatchee Strand Kissimmee Prairie Lower Wekiva River Paynes Prairie Pumpkin Hill Creek River Rise Rock Springs Run San Felasco Hammock Savannas Seabranch St. Lucie Inlet St. Sebastian River Tarkiln Bayou Topsail Hill Waccasassa Bay Yellow River Marsh

State Trails	Blackwater Heritage Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Gainesville-Hawthorne General James A. Van Fleet Nature Coast Palatka-Lake Butler Palatka-to-St. Augustine Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad Withlacoochee

State Forests	Belmore Big Shoals Blackwater River Carl Duval Moore Cary Charles H. Bronson Cottage Hill Deep Creek Etoniah Creek Four Creeks Goethe Holopaw Indian Lake Jennings John M. Bethea Lake George Lake Talquin Lake Wales Ridge Little Big Econ Matanzas Myakka Okaloacoochee Slough Picayune Strand Pine Log Point Washington Ralph E. Simmons Memorial Ross Prairie Seminole Tate's Hell Tiger Bay Twin Rivers Wakulla Watson Island Welaka Withlacoochee

Other

Nature centers	List of nature centers in Florida

Florida Department of Environmental Protection

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.