Russell-Fields Pier: A Mile of Fishing Over the Gulf

Reaching straight out over the emerald water is the Russell-Fields Pier, also known as the City Pier. It stretches about one thousand five hundred feet into the Gulf of Mexico, making it one of the longest piers on the entire Gulf coast. Walk to the far end and the beach behind you shrinks to a thin white ribbon while the water below turns from pale green to deep blue.

The pier is maintained by the city, and for a small daily fee anyone can stroll it, while anglers pay a bit more to drop their lines. They come for seasonal runs of Spanish mackerel, redfish, pompano, and king mackerel, and the pier is also one of the finest free wildlife platforms on the coast. Dolphins cruise beneath it, stingrays glide past, sea turtles surface nearby, and shorebirds work the surf line at either side.

This coast has had piers reaching into the Gulf for well over a century, going back to the early days when small steamships and passengers came and went along the shore, and structures like this one have been rebuilt and extended many times as storms and years took their toll. At sunset the pier fills with people who came not to fish but simply to watch the sky burn over the water.