"I looked at him and said, 'Dude, a 9-year-old kid out-fished you. You’re 50 or 60 years old. You should learn how to fish.'"

Before 9 a.m. on a sunny Thursday, Greg Sgrignoli was casting his line off the north Skyway Fishing Pier but having little luck. He caught two small crevalle jacks, a pinfish and the only fish he wanted, a mangrove snapper — which was an inch too short to legally keep. Later on, he said, he went to the other side of the pier and caught about two dozen mangrove snappers, five of which he could keep.

“I love fooling the fish to get them to bite. I don’t care what kind of fish it is,’’ said Sgrignoli, 63, a retired owner of a heating and air-conditioning company who lives most of the year in Enola, Pa. He’s been fishing since he was 3. He’s fished off the pier dozens of times in the past six years.He talked with the Tampa Bay Times about catching fish and why he likes doing so off the Skyway Fishing Pier.

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