Tag: dan russells pier

LIVE – Russell-Fields Pier First Weekend Huge Success

_mg_7746wtmkWith the first day of business being Friday, Russel-Fields Pier in Panama City Beach saw over 1800 people on Friday and just under 1,000 people on Saturday by 1 pm when I was there.  They closed the pier down shortly before dusk to set off the fireworks a little after 9pm.  The fireworks show left no visible damage that I could see, just as promised – thnaks Yankee!

So far the most common fish caught are Spanish and King Mackerel, although a small handful of people I talked today said they caught a higher number than usual of “lady-fish”, or the poor -man’s trout.

The weather is rather dreary, but seems to be wanting to clear up.  I was actually harrassed by more fisherman than usual, must have been the umbrella, I’m sure I looked like a dweeb.  I was just trying to keep my camera dry!

_mg_7739wtmkThere were tons of surfers out, the surf looked great, good clean waves, nice break in between.  In fact, the only complaint I would have had if I were a surfer would be that there were too many surfers.

I will say this, all weekend I was greeted by a great guy working the booth that seemed happy to be there.  Today, I was greeted by a man named Terry who was real grumpy, must have been the weather.  At least he’s got a/c!  We do need polite people greeting our tourists – haven’t we been discussing this?  Cheer up Terry, you live in the best place on earth!

On to the county pier that’s under construction!

New Pier's Open, Fireworks set to go off tonight!

Having been under construction for the better part of 18 months, the new City Pier, Russell-Fields Pier is open for business.  The new 1,500 foot pier, located right across from Pier Park opened at first light yesterday to a line of fisher-persons ready to catch anything from Bonita to King Mackeral to sharks. One onlooker said they spotted a 6 footer lurking around the pilings waiting for a stray crippled fish to gobble up.

I won’t go into too many details on the pier, as we’ve covered that, but I will say that it is long, very awesome, and super great to have it back.  I promise, I won’t neglect you new pier, I promise I’ll visit you often!

If you want to fish, the cost is $6 per person, but if you just want to walk out, the cost is $2 with kids 6 and under getting in for free.  The pier is open today, but will close sometime right after sunset for the fireworks display.

I was out there yesterday and they were getting all the fireworks set up, arranging the firing tubes in neat rowes.  “The layout is perfect and the setup is just right,” said “Yankee” Scot Fischer, one of the “technicians” setting up the array of explosives.  He was commenting on the rows of “blow-out” panels that are unique to this particular design of the pier.  They seemed to be the perfect width.  I’ll have more pictures next week of the setup as I’ll be back out there today.