Anyone ever been to or fished Anna Maria Island, FL (just south of Tampa)?

Now that we have my daughter's graduation party out of the way, we'll be heading off on vacation to Anna Maria Island on the FL gulf coast in a bit.  Anyone ever been?  Looking fwd to it since we are less than a block off the beach on the north end and can walk to the bay side and gulf side beaches and the deep channel is within casting distance on the inside corner of point.  Supposed to be able to get snook and tarpon from the beach, plus all the regular suspects.  Def. going to be doing some night time fishing for toothy things as long as we can catch some bait.  Will def. post up some pics if we are successful.  Goal is to get my son on something pushing 6' this year.  My gear can't handle much more than that and I don't feel like getting my reels dumped but with the tarpon running and big hammers chasing them, always that slight chance...

Wish I lived closer to FL to make that drive easier. Loved it there...weather was great.. fishing so so, water beautiful even though sandy for them with the previous weeks weather....all the rain and east wind from Sun to Thurs. Would blow the dirty water and grass out of the bay on the lows...made bottom fishing for bait tough at the point. Did get a small jack on a arti shrimp that we ended up catching a 5+ ft. Blacktip on the next night. That was the second shark my son caught. Earlier in the week he caught what I think was a 3.5' reef shark. No fin markings at all, light tan on top, can say I never caught one of them in TX. Goal was to get something over 5' and my son accomplished it. 6' or bigger will be next years goal so looks like I'll need a kayak to yak out a bait....manatees everywhere.. swim right up to you when wadefishing the surf...could pet them...but didn't need the $500 fine. Lots of dolphins too. Had to be careful where you chucked your lures. Last night there, winds had calmed and the family all did a 2 hr clear bottom, led lit night time kayak tour in the bay. That was pretty cool....one group from Chicago with us were great and also had a good time but a family of 5 from from Boston, what ****bags (other than the mom). Two bratty teenage whiny girls and 2 prick, early teen boys. When we went into a canal looking for manatees, they started yapping at homeowners/renters who were outside and I could tell the guides were getting angry and embarrassed. Thankfully they decided to leave and head back to the launch on their own after an hr. Saw lots of cool stuff in the grass flats in 2 to 3' of water.

Son did lose a nice snook in the wash the one day and we hooked up with a ton of ladyfish but after 1 or 2 jumps, most got an early release from the spoon or gotcha.

2 reels finally kicked the can. My 22 year old Shimano stradic 2500 I bought in TX finally kicked the bucket, wont turn at all, and my Sahara 4000, anti reverse stopped working. Big reels seem ok....but need to give them all a good cleaning..

lol, I needed all that info. before I went!!!!!!  haha....we did most of our eating at home, at least breakfast, when we had it, to save a $.  Did go to the Rod n Reel on Sunday, our first day.  Winds were heavy and not much biting for us.  Manatees were swimming back and forth under the pier so go some cool pics.  No cast netting allowed from their pier so we paid the $2 and casted a few lines out but nothing of fresh dead shrimp.  Could see a school of a dozen 20"+ snook hanging out under the end amongst the piles but they weren't biting.  I heard night time bonnet head fishing off the end is good but we wanted something a little bigger so fished Bean point at night and during the day.  We were staying right there less than a block from the North Bay Blvd. entrance and the one right down the beach.  
We ate at the Waterfront one night, got pizza at Pizza Social one night and took a drive and ate at The Cottage down on Siesta key one night.  North end on Anna Maria was definitely our fav. from what we saw/explored.  Rented a golf cart for the week so it was nice tooling around on that everywhere and much easier to find parking for it.  All my phone pics are too big so I need to take some time to try and resize them and post them up.  

Some pics...
Manatee from Rod N Reel Pier...
Bait for the week...12" to 15" mullet..
First shark of the week....3.5' approx.
Only other shark, 5'+ blacktip...
 

Those are some of the biggest mullet that I have ever seen. I hear they are actually good eating…. If I caught some that big, I’d have to give it a try.

Those birds do that on the Space Coast beaches as well. We did really well one day at Patrick SFB and had one of those things trying to pull fish out of a bucket that we were bleeding out. Kept us from really putting a smack down on fish, having to watch that bucket and shoe it away.

That’s not a pretty picture 

Dr.strangenuke

Friday off shore Oregon Inlet, 3000 to 6000 plus feet off water, 45-70 miles out.Boats name, Game Changer, 60 feet of water line, cruise speed 30+ knots. Action was hot all day, yellowfin tuna, blackfin, gaffer Mahi. We had agreat chance at a blue Marlin, hit bait hard missed, comeback second time, missed again, heart breaking. Over all a great day of fishing. In October, will be back at it, a week off the Islamorada humps. Pelagic fever, once you get it, it'sin your blood. Trying to send pic's, damm if I can figure it out,I'm trying.

Here are the pictures, finally! (Friday, July 18th off Oregon Inlet)

Yeah, another bad day with sharks! As the saying goes, the Taxman also gets his. We fisherman get ours. On to Islamorada humps in October, the sharks are even worse.

Sad to see....was a cool little pier.  We didn't eat there but that was our first legit manatee sighting on the island, out first full day there.  It will take several years for them, longboat key, siesta key and the surrounding area to recover from this one-two punch.  The city pier took a beating too...I think a good portion of the pier itself was gone but it looks like the building proper survived.  Fingers crossed they don't have to deal with any more large storms this year but, some long range models have potential development in the Caribbean in the future.  
Only positive is, Helene and Milton should have sucked out some of the ocean heat content so hopefully RI isn't as big of a factor....