Shell beach is an interesting location on Siesta Key with a history of excellent fishing and dramatic legal issues.
Parking
There are 10 to 15 spots here on both sides of the road. Park closes at 9pm and they will ticket you.
Access
Florida has a Mean High Tide water line law that makes any beach publicly accessible up to this line. The line is the average place the high tide reaches and hasn’t been recalculated in something like 30 or 40 years. This makes it really hard to enforce or argue either way. The cops on Siesta Key completely ignore this law and state that you must be in the water to be legally off someone’s private property.
So there is about a 30 foot wide piece of beach here, directly in front of the parking dead end, that is fully legal to hang out on. But you can walk in shin high water all the way down to the rocks and around them on the south end if you want. But carful not to get on the sand or one of these rich folks’ security guards will chase you down and have you trespassed.
Fishing Shell Beach
Nothing really special here, just cast in all directions and see if any fish are around biting. Depending on species you are targeting you can run live bait or sling lures. The tide can really rip here since its right on the middle of Big Pass.
Fishing at night here is definitely best but the cops can be relentless in kicking people out. Sometimes I’ll park at the North Siesta bridge and walk down with a rod super late, cops usually stop checking out there around 10 or so unless someone calls them.