Night Bites at the Skyway: Round 2

On this day, I decided to head back to the Skyway Fishing Pier for Round 2 of some nightfishing action with my buddy Kenny. The pier sits just south of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which spans Tampa Bay and leads out toward the Gulf Coast. Tonight, our goal was simple: catch whatever was willing to bite and hopefully put some fish in the box. 

We arrived around 8:00 PM and spent about half an hour catching bait with the cast net. During that time, we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the pier. Our catch included a mix of threadfins and whitebait—the kind of bait you typically want in the Tampa Bay area during late August. With a half bucket full, we headed to our first fishing spot.

We started fishing around 8:30 PM, but the first hour and a half was slow. We were only getting small bites and a few trash fish, like pinfish and toadfish. But persistence pays off, and by 10:00 PM, we started feeling more aggressive taps. When we set the hook on some of these, they turned out to be White Grunts—perfect for the cooler.

As the night went on, we kept getting strong taps, but some nice fish managed to escape to the rocks—just part of the game. After landing four more grunts, the bite slowed down for the next hour. Not ready to call it quits, we moved to the end of the pier.

As soon as I dropped my first bait there, I hooked a 10.5-inch Mangrove Snapper and added him to the cooler. After that catch, the bite completely shut off, so we decided to call it a night around 2:00 AM.

Even though the action was a bit slow, we managed to put some fish in the cooler and enjoyed another great night on the pier. Overall, good vibes all around—I can’t wait to get back out there again.

To see more from this trip, check out the full recap on our Instagram page by clicking the link below!

Instagram Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/DNvPcuQ2kdh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==