Peering at the St. Johns County Ocean & Fishing Pier, pondering Chicago and fishing ambiance

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla.--Anglers silhouetted against the predawn sky Sunday on the St. Johns County Ocean & Fishing Pier caught my eye.

I walk a couple miles every morning, no matter where I am. Since it was St. Augustine, I decided to walk the beach. Even at 5:30 a.m., I was far from alone as people piled out to the beach.

But the pier and anglers is what pulled at me. I finally figured out how to get out on the pier. It was free that early.

How many people were on the beach--jogging, walking, hunting shells and shark teeth, holding hands--that early surprised me. The number of anglers out before dawn did not surprise me, they're up early.

Beach access is free. Sightseeing on the pier is $2. Daily fishing permits for the pier are $6 for non-residents.

That made me smile when I think of the relentless complaining about the cost of fishing around Chicago from an access point. Can you imagine if a booth was put up to collect fees for walking the Montrose Horseshoe or if a daily fishing permit fee was required?

Walking out the pier, I bumped into Joe Fioramonti cutting up shrimp and a small croaker for bait on the wooden cap board on the pier fencing. We instantly started talking.

Next cast he got a bite and reeled in a small croaker, which obligingly made the croaking sound as Fioramonti unhooked it, then released it.

That started a litany of catching fish new to me as dawn seemed to spark fishing. Over the next hour and a half, he caught several dozen fish, a lot of them croakers. But he also caught spots, sometimes known as black spots, for, yes, a dark spot above the pectoral fin. There was whiting, which, Fioramonti said, some locals call butterfish.

Fioramonti, a retired printer from Greenwood Lake, New York, was down visiting his son and grandkids. I was driving a U-Haul with our second son to drop off at our oldest son's place.

Pigeons, ruddy turnstones, terns, gulls, brown pelicans and boat-tailed grackles flew around the pier, sometimes being a nuisance, or floated on the water.

For fishing, Fioramonti used a spinning rod with what looked like a crappie rig with circle hooks above a 3-ounce pyramid sinker. He either cut up shrimp, bought inexpensively at Oldest City Bait & Tackle on A1A, or small croakers for cut bait.

Another fish he caught he called a sail catfish. I think it's a gafftopsail catfish with a high dorsal fin vaguely like a sail. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission notes they prefer coastal waters. The state record is 8 pounds, 14 ounces. The one Fioramonti caught was less than a pound.

A woman at a choice spot at the end of the pier caused a fuss when she hooked a bonnethead shark, smallest of hammerhead sharks, of about 18 inches. Visitors on the pier, including myself, clustered around her to look at it. It reminded of perch fishing at Navy Pier when tourists stop to take photos when someone reels in a yellow perch.

A thought for Chicago's city planners to keep in mind: Fishing adds to the ambiance of the waterfront.

The woman caught another smaller shark later.

When Fioramonti caught fish, he measured them to see if they were as big as the cap board (about 12 inches). Those he kept and took to the end where some anglers were keeping fish.

A turtle (snapper, I think) bobbed below us several times.

Fioramonti caught a couple doubles on a good morning, so good that he said, "Usually, I end up giving my leftover bait away." He didn't need to Sunday.

A man with three kids came down and started surf casting down the beach. When he reeled in a fish, the kids went wild.

It was time.

Driving out of town, I stopped by Oldest City Bait & Tackle. It's the kind of bait shop that makes me nostalgic and feeling fuzzy, but different than the bait shops I know. It offered shrimp, mullet, squid, clams, ballyhoo and sardines for sale. The woman working the counter explained the rigs I saw them using on the pier, which looked like crappie rigs, and showed me Pompano rigs and whiting rigs.

Seeing the bait shop made me happy. Seeing a kid in a boat outside flipping minnows from the bait box made me even happier. That's a kid learning to love fishing.

St. Augustine is a touristy town, one I happen to enjoy. If you're going, revel in it and visit visitstaugustine.com.