The Skyway Fishing Pier puts you over deep, moving water at the mouth of Tampa Bay without a boat. The piers are what's left of the approaches to the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge, part of which collapsed in 1980 when a freighter hit it. Instead of tearing the approaches down, the state kept them for fishing, and they became a state park in 1994. Florida State Parks bills it as the world's longest fishing pier.
There are two piers, a north pier on the St. Petersburg side and a south pier on the Manatee County side, both running out into the mouth of the bay alongside today's bridge. Every tide pushes a lot of water, and the bait that rides it, past the pilings. That's the whole appeal.
Take the course before you go
FWC requires everyone who fishes the Skyway pier to complete a free online course, and to renew it every year. That includes anglers 65 and older who normally don't need a fishing license. Kids under 16 can skip it if they're with an adult who has passed it in the past year. You get a certificate with a completion code, so save it on your phone. The course link and the full rules are on FWC's Skyway page.
The rules are there because of the birds. Pelicans and other seabirds gather around the pier, and hooks and line left in the water tangle and kill them.
The gear rules
- A limit on rods. FWC caps how many rods or handlines each person can fish at the pier. Check the number on the Skyway page before you load the cart.
- Single hooks only in winter. Through the winter months, FWC bans rigs with more than one hook, plus any treble or double hook. That rules out sabiki bait rigs, chicken rigs, pompano rigs, squid jigs and a lot of plugs and jerkbaits. FWC's page has the exact dates and a longer list.
- Plan your bait around it. If you normally catch bait on a sabiki, that won't work in winter. Florida State Parks says there's a bait shop at each pier, so you can buy bait there instead. Call ahead, because service at the south pier has been affected by the closures described below.
If you hook a bird
Don't cut the line. A bird that flies off trailing line can tangle itself, and other birds, and die. FWC's short version is reel, remove, release:
- Reel the bird in slowly and steadily. Don't yank to shake it loose.
- From a pier, keep it on the water until you can lift it with a net. Hauling it straight up the side can injure it.
- Cover its head with a towel or shirt to calm it, hold the wings against its body, and keep a pelican's bill slightly open so it can breathe.
- Cut the barb off and back the hook out, then clip away any line wrapped around it.
If the bird has swallowed the hook or is badly hurt, get help from a seabird rescuer instead. FWC's Hooked a bird? page walks through it with a video, and the Skyway page links an app for finding rescuers nearby.
What bites, and when
Because the pier reaches deep water, it gives up fish that most piers don't. FWC notes that kingfish are occasionally caught from piers that run into deep water, and the Skyway is one of those. Florida State Parks lists snook, tarpon, grouper, black sea bass, Spanish and king mackerel, cobia, sheepshead, red snapper and pompano among the most popular catches. Through the year, roughly:
- Spring and fall: Spanish mackerel move through on their way north in spring and back south once the water drops below about 70°F. Diving birds over bait are the giveaway. Kingfish pass through in spring and fall too, and cobia move up the coast in early spring.
- Summer: tarpon and snook. Snook spawn from late spring into early fall at the Gulf passes and at spots inside the lower bay.
- Late winter and early spring: sheepshead crowd onto pilings and rocks to spawn, and they're the best winter bet.
Our month-by-month calendar for Tampa Bay has the full picture, and the Spanish mackerel and kingfish guide covers timing the runs by water temperature.
Moving water is what turns fish on here. NOAA publishes tide predictions for its Mullet Key Channel (Skyway) station, in the shipping channel a few miles west of the bridge, and the hours around the strongest flow are worth planning your trip around.
Closures and rebuilding
Sections of the pier close when inspections find problems. In late October 2025, part of the south pier was closed indefinitely after a Florida Department of Transportation inspection found structural issues: Florida State Parks says there's no access beyond the bait shop, news reports put the closed part at nearly half of the south pier, and the north pier stayed open. Since March 16, 2026 the south pier has had no power, with limited bait-shop service and limited lighting at night. In 2026 the state announced that the south pier will be replaced with a new pier built beside it and the north pier repaired to extend its life. FDOT says fishing access will be kept open during the project, which also adds four smaller timber fishing piers along the south pier's access road, but expect sections to open and close as the work goes on.
Before you drive down, check the park's page for which parts are open, plus the current hours and fees.
Before you go
- Course certificate and license. Bring your Skyway course certificate. Sources disagree on whether the pier's fishing fee also covers your saltwater license, so check with the park before you count on it. Either way, the fee doesn't replace the course.
- Weather. The piers stand in open water at the bay mouth, with nothing to block the wind. Check the conditions on our Tampa Bay page and the National Weather Service forecast for Tampa Bay waters. Lightning is a real danger on a long, exposed pier, so leave when storms build.
- Rules for anything you keep. Size limits, bag limits and closed seasons change, so check FWC's saltwater rules before you put a fish in the cooler. Snook and tarpon have extra rules of their own.