Galveston Fishing Pier — Local services in Galveston

We went to the Galveston fishing pier on a Friday morning. The place wasn’t very crowded and it was a little cool out, but it wasn’t long till took off our jackets. The pier is well maintained, and at the head of the pier is a restaurant and a store. You walk through the store with your gear and check in at the cashier . They charge you $18 to access the pier. They do have a military and a senior citizen discount, which will save you a few dollars. Please go to their website and look for rules and regulations before you go. They advertise that they have bait and they do however it’s not fresh bait. The mullet that we got was frozen and was from overseas. Had we have known this we would’ve stopped at one of the many bait shops that we passed coming into town and got fresh bait. There are restrooms at the head of the pier. If you have somebody with you, that is not fishing they have to pay the full price if they are going to stay with you or if they’re just going to walk the pier it is five dollars. I can’t complain too much about the prices considering how nice this pier is and how well-maintained it is. There is another pier down the road a little bit and it is shorter and not as well maintained. My understanding is this pier is maintained by the state and the other pier is maintained by the city. Do your research before you come out and by all means stop at a bait shop before you get there. We did enjoy this well enough that we will definitely be back. There is no parking lot. You park on the street and if you park on the side where the pier is you have to access a barcode on a sign or call the phone number and pay money. We paid six dollars for 7 AM to 1 PM and when we refreshed, it was eight dollars from 1 PM to 5 PM. It is my understanding if you park on the other side of the street parking is free, but you have to deal with crossing the traffic with all your gear. additionally parking fills up quickly so if you get there after eight or 9 o’clock, make sure you have a wagon for your gear or a backpack as you may have a pretty good walk down the seawall to get...

hooked 2 giant redfish! but didn’t have a net to pull it up, and pier doesn’t rent nets. food was great! but you can easily spend $40. day crew was friendly and let us leave our pole at the shop while we ate! but the dude that ran the night shift totally stole my tent. it was 46 degrees with 30mph wind so I brought a dome tent. duh. he first told me “no tent allowed” which is fine, I told him ok cool and that I wouldn’t set it up but he rudely told me to take it back to my car and he wouldn’t hold it behind the counter, even though there were like 9 people total on the pier. so I made some jokes to lighten the mood and left it just outside the shop door on the pier entrance and joked that if it went missing, I would know who to come to. he said he assumed no responsibility for lost items and I agreed, but told him that I wanted half of the profits when he sold it to a customer (another joke, another blank stare). when we left less than 2 hours later it was gone and homeboy VERY suspiciously denied knowing where it went, while staring at his little security camera screen. so I told him to rewind the footage to see who took it and “oops guess what I can’t oops”. I know I kinda asked for it, and he basically told me not to trust him, but only about 5-6 people walked through that door the whole time I was there. and dingus didn’t even offer to help me “look for it”. probably because he chunked it overboard in a bald bearded rage of anti-humor and terrible customer etiquette. haha anyway, fishing was fun even though he tried to ruin my visit. I’ll give 5 stars if he buys...

I came the day before to fish for the first time. I was born and raised in Galveston and ironically, I have never fished this pier in my life. I have to say, the pier was very nice. I wasn’t thrilled about paying $12, but when it’s for a 24hr pass, I was okay with it. Next time, I will make sure that I have the next day off.

The employees were friendly, courteous, and answered all my questions including letting me know that the city (of Galveston) doesn’t start charging for parking until around 10AM (I arrived at around 5:00AM). It’s a $1 an hour for parking and it is a royal pain in the ass to call or get the application on your smart phone, but hey, that’s not Galveston Fishing Pier’s fault. I guess that is one of the sole reasons why I moved away from Galveston Island…Still a money hungry Island ran by City Officials trying to squeeze every cent out of you.

My buddy and I didn’t catch anything to speak of, but the weather was nice, and the facilities were clean and usable (i.e. restrooms, bait cleaning stations, lights, etc. The pier also has a full service restaurant and bar just in case you get hungry for a real meal or need a real drink.

All in all, it was a fair; I suppose like any other outing to Galveston, if you want to go have fun, you are going to pay. I only wish GFP would fix that T-head at the end of the pier, but they will probably up the charge to $15 per person...