# Skyway Pier



## catsfan9 (Mar 29, 2009)

Looking to make a 3-4 day trip to fish the pier. Would appreciate a fishing report. Thanks


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## clean one (Nov 7, 2006)

They post a report on their website,but it never matches up towhat is going on when I am out there! LOL!


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## Tramontane (Jun 6, 2009)

what no reports? i too would appreciate any information about tampa reports skyway or inter coastal areas


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## mislead_matt (Apr 20, 2010)

I've been there 2-3x in the last 2 weeks, I'll give you what I know.

Still lots of spanish mackerel and blue runners being caught. Live, or freshly dead shrimp is what kept my line tight all morning. That always changes. Sometimes they go after the medium sized sabiki jigs. Tip them with shrimp if nothing is biting them. Other times they eat silver spoons. Get a nice big weight far up the leader so you can keep the spoon low or midway up the water column. They also love gotcha lures. To get an idea of what's hitting at that time, look to see what people are doing that are indeed catching.

Last time I was there, my wife and I brought home a dozen macks. We ended up catching about 15 macks, 8 blue runners, few small grunt, a couple mother-in-laws, and pinfish. Hooked a bunch of other fish, suspected to be macks, but broke the line in different places all day. Macks were between 11-22 inches. I was using kinda light stuff for a pier, so you can catch them on basically anything as long as you have a somewhat beefy leader. Macks have very sharp teeth, and can bite right through leaders. We lost a bit of gear that day. We fished from 9AM until 2PM.

I've seen people catching pompano (not sure what they're catching them on), sheepshead (fiddlers), mangos (greenbacks), grouper (grunt), and have been told by the bait shop guys of kingfish still being caught early in the morn when water temps are the lowest.

I always have the best luck getting there in the morning or after nightfall. At night you can catch silver trout, speckled trout, and decent grunt sometimes. And of course shark.


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## Pito13b (Aug 20, 2010)

I have been out to the south side pier every Saturday this passed month. Fished the high/outgoing tide every time. Last Saturday was slow with only 1 mack and 1 blue runner. Tons of greenies though! The previous weeks we did much better with macks/runners My wife caught most of the macks with a mangrove in the mix. All on live shrimp. Two of those Saturdays we saw some groupers make it onto the pier right next to us. 3 of the 4 we saw were keepers. They were caught on cut greenbacks.


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## Fishwander (Jul 2, 2010)

Fish the two tide days only ; the one tidal change days are very slow.
I have fished both piers but have found that you need to be where the bait is, so if they are where you aren't ~ you gotta travel to the other side . Your pass on the Fishing bridge is good for travel anytime within the 24 hour period at the time of purchase. You can stay longer than 24 hours, or even for several days if you wish ( I believe that self-motorized campers are excluded from the bridge).

Better opportunities occur one hour before sunrise through the first couple of hours; similarly, a coouple of hours before sunset through the first hour of darkness.

The best opportunities for fish are when the tidal change occurs with the sunlight change. The kingfish and tarpon are there, as well as the spanish mackeral, grunts , sea bass , and snappers, and sheepshead.

Fishwander
(I believe the best spanish action occurs just before and just after tide change as the current is changing. Best lures are cut bait , sabikis's {#30 leader,#50 mainline}, Gotcha's , and Clarke spoons behind a 1 oz. weight )
Wire is optional , but fluro is preferred.

** Your best friend there is a pair of binoculars to see who and where they are catching **


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