After declining my friends for a couple years to go “crabbing” with them, I finally got my lazy and depressed butt off my comfy bed. After all, the curiosity of imagining my energetic friends chillin’ with a fishing pole became my strength.

For $5 a head, permission is granted to fish on a pier alongside the famous Sunshine Skyway Bridge in St. Pete, FL. What?! Pyra, maybe I’ll just take my rod, my shrimp, and my money and just fish from my backyard pond. Before you sulk away from the price, it is VERY worth it. The view of the bridge and surrounding water is a photographer’s paradise (aka, you call yourself a photographer here because you can’t catch fish even at the grocery store) For those who merely hang out in the presence of the fishermen gods, there’s enough room to park your car and place some small lounge chairs on the side… and bathrooms every 200 or so feet! For people who actually know how to fish (the fishermen gods) there is a wide array of fish types swimming around St. Petersburg… ehh… I just don’t know their names.

But the real magic was to be caught in our homemade 15-foot-pole with a net attached. My gang merely planted themselves to one side, brought out the snacks, and waited for the crabs to come floating by.

“Crab! Crab!” one lookout person would yell before we threw the person with the pole over the pier’s side to scoop up a future meal. We didn’t care if the person fell the 10-plus feet into the water (which he didn’t)… we wanted the crabs!

Unfortunately-not-really, there was more camaraderie than crabs or fish. In six hours, only eight crabs were stupid enough to wander into our eager net… and three were too small. According to the gang, a normal evening of crabbing on the Skyway is filling an entire bucket within an hour.

Aching for a crab dinner? Check out the Sunshine Skyway fishing pier and pack a long net… and a fishing pole if you want some fish nuggets on the side.