Rod & Reel Pier
Anna Maria Island, Florida

That’s from Inkwatu: fishing piers. There’s a couple other pier related posts on here, too: Dubai Long Pier and St. Petersburg Pier. There are so many piers here in Tampa Bay that deserved to be photographed. This one is one of my favorites (as is the Dubai Long Pier).

Rod & Reel Pier, Anna Maria Island

weathered wood

This post was almost titled “weathered wood.” While modern concrete piers, such as the local St. Pete Pier (pictured below), Fort Desoto Pier, Skyway Bridge Pier, and Williams Fishing Pier, are wonderful and probably 100 times safer than wooden piers, and capable of extending farther out into the water, an old wooden pier has tons more mystique. Others feel the same. There’s even a “weathered wood” group on the photo sharing site, Flickr.

St. Pete Pier looking toward town

wooden piers engage the senses

Weathered wooden piers move ever so slightly under your feet and you feel connected to the motion of the waves that rock against the pier. As you approach the pier from a distance, down the shoreline, finally arriving in the shade of the pilings with the pier above you, then clambering up onto the pier and taking the long walk away from the safety of the shore out above the water, your fingers gently trailing against the worn wood railing, you enter the enchanted universe of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. When you finally reach the end of the pier under a sky threatening to storm, choppy waves smacking below, you know you are in a magical place. When you return, you will be changed.

Rod & Reel Pier, Anna Maria Island

City Pier, Anna Maria Island

fishing piers

There’s two wonderful piers down on Anna Maria Island, just off Bradenton, to the south of here, for just this kind of experience.

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One is the Rod & Reel Pier, pictured above (the left photo and the left pier on the aerial Google map), and another the City Pier (right photo, right pier on map), both with restaurants out at their ends. Closer to home, there’s the oddly named Dubai Long Pier in Redington Beach, pictured at the end of this article.

New York City piers (docks)

docks and boardwalks

A “dock,” I think of as a place to tie your boat. A dock may look like a pier, might be used for fishing like a pier, might even be called a pier (as are the New York City piers pictured above), but they’re not really “piers” are they? The same with boardwalks (wonderful as they are in their own right), such as the Madeira Beach John’s Pass boardwalk pictured below or another Florida favorite, the Daytona Beach Pier (its name says “pier” but it’s actually a boardwalk)–also see Under the Boardwalk.

John’s Pass Boardwalk, Madeira Beach, FL

gone fishin’

For more information on piers visit here, here, and here. For more local pier information visit one of these sites:

• Anna Maria Island
• boatless fishing
• Captain Mel Suncoast Piers and Captain Mel More Suncoast Piers
• Fintalk
• Pier Fishing Guide Forum and Pier Fishing Guide

It’s the iconic image of a couple kids in overalls fishing off the end of an old weathered pier that gives the notion of fishing piers their emotional power. The cut fish drying in the sun on the wood of the pier, birds waiting to eat fish offal, ice chests at the ready for caught fish, and buckets of bait all speak freedom. It’s good, occasionally, to be able to just hang up a sign that says, “gone fishin’.”

Dubai Pier, Redington Beach, FL

While working on today’s post, I was listening to one of my favorite songs (and simply the very best performance of it), What A Wonderful World, performed by Louis Armstrong on the What A Wonderful World album. Have you ever tried buying single songs or albums from Amazon as mp3 instant downloads? It’s easy and addictive. You can hear similar music on free Internet radio’s “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” from Rochester, NY’s WXXI. (Don’t worry–you don’t have to be in Rochester to hear it; it’s “played” over the Internet wherever you are.) It’s also carried by many other NPR stations. That means you can find a number of different Internet radio “places” and times to listen to it by entering your zip code at Allegro.

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LONG PIER TACKLE SHACK

I’ve got a love affair with piers. Ever since I was a child visiting my father’s family down in southern Mississippi and fishing off the long pier in Biloxi (a pier destroyed many hurricanes ago), I’m always thrilled by the sensation of walking way out above deep water. There’s just such an old fashioned pier in Redington Beach. (Redington is one of the many little beach communities on the barrier islands in the Gulf along Pinellas County.)

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LOOKING OUT THE PIER

It used to be called the Redington Long Pier, but is now called the Dubai Long Pier. This Tampa Bay Business Journal article explains why the name change. The pier owner’s attitude appeals to me; it’s independent, colorful, thumb-in-your-eye antiestablishmentarianism at its best!

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BLUE HERON

It is definitely a long pier, extending 1,021 feet out into the Gulf. It’s the old style weathered board pier, popular in my youth. The gray sheen of weathering is as beautiful to me as the many birds that sit on its railings. The fishermen who frequent the Dubai Long Pier are as weathered as the pier itself. One fellow, the day I was there, had not let the need of a walker stop him from his favorite past-time. These were local residents, cordial, welcoming with almost imperceptible nods, all the while not losing their concentration on their tasks.

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PELICANS

It is my understanding that any child under the age of 16, whether or not they are a Florida resident, and all Florida residents, of any age, do NOT need a fishing license for salt water fishing (fresh water is a different story). However, non-Florida residents 16 and older DO need a license unless they are fishing on a charter boat. However, I strongly recommend you read the relevant pages for yourself since I could be in error and regulations might change.

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PELICAN

The Dubai Long Pier charges a $2 fee for walk-on visitors who aren’t fishing. That’s a very fair price for such a simple and peaceful pleasure. There’s a $10 fishing fee for adults and a somewhat cheaper one for kids 10 and under. No tackle? No problem: the tackle shop on the pier has rod rentals for $9.35 and, of course, bait. (And, they take credit cards.)

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BROWN PELICAN

You’ll have some competition for the fish you catch though. The pier has as many birds as fishermen. It’s a great location to get pictures, up close, of these wonderful creatures. The ones that habitually frequent the pier are fearless around humans (although they won’t pester you), which means, if you move slowly, you can get some great pictures.

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GREAT WHITE HERON

When I was in high school, eons ago, I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to go into science or music as a career. I loved, and still do love, scientific ideas (various theories and speculations) and stuff (literally: test tubes, microscopes, slides, telescopes…all the objects that must have filled the mind of Jules Verne, another Florida resident at one time). During a part of that phase of my life I was a (totally nerdy) student member of the National Prairie Chicken Society (my biology teacher was a charter member).

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BLACKBIRDS

Although I have not done any birding since those days, I still love birds. Wouldn’t want one for a pet, but I admire them greatly. There’s a bird that was on the pier, pictured immediately below, that I can’t identify. What is it? If you know, please comment. I’m curious. I suspect it might be a female of the blackbirds pictured above, but I’m not at all certain. Please don’t be shy. If you have an idea, please post it.

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WHAT KIND OF BIRD IS THIS ?????

Large fishing floats (not the little bobbers you remember from your cane line as a kid), can usually be spotted about the pilings. There are Styrofoam ones, plastic ones, round ones, torpedo shaped ones, and even glass ones in heavy twine netting (although I’ve never seen any of the glass ones in actual use). The glass ones are collectibles, but one can also buy them new as decorator items. I remember my sister showing me some that had washed ashore from Japan all the way to Alaska, where she lived at that time. They are remarkable objects. Even the modern plastic ones charm me.

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FISHING FLOATS

Looking back along the pier toward the shore can give you a perspective on the beaches you can’t get any other way. In fact, every direction you look on a pier (back, out, down, up) shifts your usual perspective. Maybe that’s part of what makes the pier such a fun experience. It helps you see things differently.

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LOOKING BACK TOWARD LAND

There are numerous piers along the coast of Florida. I’ve been accumulating photos to do a post on a bunch of them in a single post. In the meantime, I highly recommend you take a short walk on a long pier. (You probably heard the joking command in grade school too: “Take a long walk on a short pier!”) You can do no better than the Dubai Long Pier in Redington Beach (map).

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PIER SIGN ON GULF BLVD.

Just writing about O’Maddy’s Bar and Grille, thinking about sitting looking at the water while sipping a beer and munching on their Caesar salad topped with a double order of Vegas Hot fried chicken tenders raises the probability, considerably, that that’s where I’ll wind up eating supper tonight! O’Maddy’s, and similar places, are why some of us live in Florida. We like beach towns and beach town attitudes. I’ve written about Gulfport, Florida, before on this site in Before TV and Gulfport, Florida. In every way, Gulfport is an archetypical beach town. I’m instantly transported to my youth whenever I go there. Two good Gulfport websites are the City of Gulfport official site and this terrific site that really captures the feeling of Gulfport.

Back in the early 60s, I was fortunate to go to my first couple years of college out on Point Loma, in San Diego, California. Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, and Ocean Beach were where my friends and I spent our leisure time. Even today, those little beach communities have managed to retain some of their original, wonderfully seedy nature. (Here’s a live webcam of the surf at Ocean Beach.) I guess O’Maddy’s in Gulfport takes me back to 1963, San Diego beach towns, woodies, Jan & Dean, and riding behind my college roommate on his Vespa, listening to the Beach Boys sing Surfin’ USA.

Please don’t get the idea I was a surfer. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I was solidly, 100% nerd. But I liked the music and the times and the early 60s California scene. O’Maddy’s is as close as we’re going to get to that time and place, 3,000 miles away and 45 years later. The choice of piped in tunes at O’Maddy’s shows that the owner recognizes the demographic of his clientele very well. (My toes tap every time I’m there.)

O’Maddy’s Bar & Grille (5405 Shore Blvd., Gulfport, FL, 33707; 727-323-8643) is open every day at 11 A.M. with bar hours Monday through Saturday: 8 A.M. to 2 A.M. and Sunday: 11 A.M. to 2 A.M. Karaoke begins every night at 9:30 P.M. and the dinner menu starts at 5 P.M. Thankfully, the karaoke is in a different part of the building.

A word of warning about their website: it has midi music that plays on its own and can’t be turned off. Be sure to mute your computer’s speakers first unless you enjoy that kind of thing. But, their site is worth going to because it lists all the details of their menu. Their food is excellent. This is a “home run” place: excellent grub AND ambiance. The view of the water and Williams Pier is guaranteed to lower your blood pressure instantly.

There’s interesting info on William’s Pier at Waymarking.com: “521 foot extension into Boca Ciega Bay providing access to fishing in deeper waters/free admission/exterior lighting/benches/fish cleaning table.” So…take your fishing tackle for some fun before you go in for the karaoke contest every Wednesday from August 13^th through October 22^nd.

I’ve never had a bad meal at O’Maddy’s. The menu has plenty of appetizers with chicken tenders, buffalo shrimp, gator bites, mussels, onion rings, and scallops, through various salads with different meat toppings, on to excellent enormous wraps and sandwiches like corned beef, cheese Phillies, traditional Reubens, mahi-mahi Reubens, or substantial dinners of steak, pasta, chops, chicken, or fish.

To get to O’Maddy’s from Gulfport Blvd., which is the same as 22^nd Ave. S., go all the way south on 54^th St. until you dead-end at the Gulfport Casino. Turn left and it’s a couple blocks on your left. You’ll probably see me there, tonight!