Thought I posted this days ago !
We found another nice beach and fishing area south of Sarasota in Venice called Nokomis Beach. It is an inlet and the pier is paved all the way out so I could get to the end too. It was pretty foggy this day.
You can see the inlet here. This is way before you would start walking out, the parking lot goes to the end of sight here. There is a handy little sandwich/bait shop and I find it more entertaining then sitting at the Skyline Pier and Doug finds the fishing better here too. Got a big enough one to actually break his rod one day and we were off to Walmart to get another rod. Unfortunately he didn't get another bite.The beach on the other side is pretty but just before the pier in the right corner of this picture it is piled with shells. I saw people taking bags full of shells and others just being selective. 
