Bayport Pier in Hernando County is officially open for fishing. The nearly $920,000 pier had to be rebuilt after Hurricane Hermine in 2016.

Hernando County residents tell Spectrum Bay News 9 they’ve been waiting for years to be come here and catch fish on the pier.

Connie and Iraldo Ruiz moved to Hernando County from California in 2013.

“We come here fishing all the time and watch the sunsets," Iraldo Ruiz said.

"Since Day 1 we started coming here, we enjoy the beautiful weather,” Connie Ruiz added.

Hurricane Hermine ripped up the old pier in 2016, and it wasn’t the same for visitors.

“We’ve been coming every day,” Connie Ruiz said. “We would be driving here all the time just to check to see how the progress was going, and now it’s here.”

District 2 County Commissioner Wayne Dukes is a Hernando County native and, like the Ruizes, he would frequently visit the old pier. 

“This is a wonderful place and this is a wonderful day,” he said. “This is one of the focal points. Let’s face it we don’t have a big beach like a lot of the coastal places do but we have a nice boat launch here, we have a direct access to the Gulf."

It’s the memories that makes the space so special for the locals.

“There’s a lot of people that come from out of state here and they spend the summers here, actually the winters here, we share stories and they do fishing over there and I do fishing over here," Iraldo Ruiz said.

About 75 percent of the project was paid for by the FEMA Public Assistance Program.