- North Carolina at one time had almost 40 fishing piers along its coast, and now there's less than 20.

So they're part of the coastal culture of North Carolina and here in the outer banks, that tradition is alive.

- You know, everybody attaches to each peer on the speech for different reasons and it's their home, or it's where they've been coming since they were a teenager.

- People from all over the country come here.

The pier is, is very strange as far as looks.

Anything from 62 and they still here will be strange compared to what's being built nowadays.

Strange is important.

- The outer banks is not a beach town that has a boardwalk like Ocean City, Maryland or Ocean City, New Jersey.

But that's what makes the peers of the outer banks so unique.

- When a visitor shows up, when they come into Avalon Pier, we want them to fill like they're a local for a day and just to fill that, that pool of community once they come in, it's just a vibe.

The employees, the owner, the customers, the visitors, I call it the Avalon anchor.

Once you got ahold of you, you're, you're in.

- They all have their personalities and they all play a part in being like these focal points.

- We got to the point we called the fishing pier a patient, and when the patient got sick, you get it back strongly again and you turn it loose and then something else comes, but you still do it because you don't want to see it die.

- We understand the importance of fishing piers to our local culture.

It's part of our heritage.

We're all doing our part to keep this part of North Carolina's coastal culture alive.

The Jeanette family from Elizabeth City, North Carolina purchased the property from the federal government in 1939.

They had witnessed anglers taking advantage of a shipwreck off of Second Street.

The triangle wrecks fishing from the deck of that shipwreck and catching larger fish than the folks who were fishing from the beach.

So they saw an opportunity and they started fishing piers in the outer banks basically.

And in 2002, the Aquarium Society received a large grant to purchase the old wooden Jennette's pier.

The pier was going to be torn down and there was a huge public outcry to save the facility.

I approached the Aquarium Society about running the facility and luckily my vision matched their vision to turn it into an educational center and to keep it going As a fishing pier, - A lot of people come here because of the character of the pier, and they like coming back every year to see how much more character that it's got since the last time that we're here.

That's continuous work that has to be done, but we've tried to keep it going.

So yeah, it's got its own character and that's why we call it America Spear.

- In the summer months when the water gets really warm, we'll occasionally see some really unique offshore species show up.

We've had mahi Mahi caught right from the end of the pier.

We see baby sailfish.

We've had them caught from the end of the pier.

You see all kinds of sharks swimming by occasionally you'll see an Atlantic sturgeon breach off the end of the pier.

We've even seen large tarpon breach off the end of the pier and had those hooked up and caught before.

And then last winter, blue fin tuna made it in near shore.

- You've got your big sunfish that come through and the kids always enjoy catching them.

I think it makes 'em feel like they're getting something big - At the pier.

You, you get a lot of people that never fished or fishes just once in a while.

They have an opportunity to do that here.

- They can come in with nothing.

We have Rod Reynolds bait tackle everything that they would need to be able to have a day of fishing on the pier, and if they're not quite sure what they're doing, one of our guys or ladies are always willing to help show 'em what to do.

- We do have one world record, I think it's 1988, a scallop hammerhead sharp, what's called here, world Record, 308 pounds, and then we're known for drum fishing in the fall.

The world's record Red Drum was caught just a little ways down the beach from here.

So people want to fish as close as possible.

The way the world's record was, - I've noticed just over the last couple years that the younger generation has gotten that spark again, and our older generation seeing that passion and they've tapped into helping them, making 'em feel welcome, making 'em feel equal.

- We take great pride in our conservation ethic here.

We do encourage catch and release here.

We do beach cleanups whenever we can.

We do a lot of good work with marine Mammal stranding response with our partners, the National Park Service and the Wildlife Resources Commission in this area.

- We're efficient here, but they're not always biting.

You have to count on other things to keep, to keep it going.

- Oftentimes people wonder what's actually under the water, right?

You don't get to see that every day unless you're a scuba diver or a free diver or something.

So our exhibits in-house here are habitats with live species are great examples of what you can see under the waters here in the outer banks.

- Well, I've seen so many things myself over the years.

Here you see sharks swimming around the pier, all kinds of fish swimming in the water.

You go out when the waves are big and you see dolphins jumping out of the waves.

You can actually see the bottom and see stuff going on that you would never see in an aquarium.

- The live music has really taken a huge step up over the last few years, and I, it's a focal point for us, whether it's open mic to music, bingo to a solo artist.

I feel like music brings people together and it's a diversity of music that we have here too, so it attracts different people.

Every Friday and Saturday night, you have somewhere to go.

Who doesn't wanna play at the ocean?

- The Coast Studies Institutes and Jennette's peer in its nascent stages had very similar goals, and that was to share the beauty of the natural world, the study of the natural world with the public.

We decided that we would create an ocean observing station.

We added a webcam so you could serve the ocean state.

We worked with the Army Corps of Engineers and we installed an acoustic wave and current profiler on the bottom of the ocean to observe ocean currents, wave heights, water temperature, things like that.

- Starting out here with my daughter at the age of seven, we only had two employees at the time, and she would help out.

She loved standing behind the register talking to people, and she learned how to count our money there, and she got married and she went away for about two years.

She wanted to come back, be part of what I was doing, and I was, I was so glad because she did a lot of the stuff that I didn't want to do, and between my grandson and my daughter and my wife helps me out.

We've made it kind of a family thing over the years.

- The great thing about peers is they're very egalitarian.

You get people from all walks of life.

What's so special about 'em is the fact that they are those social centers.

- If the kids are a little bit more of a teenage years, they get the independence of being on the beach, but the parents can have the bird's eye view of them from up here, and you have the adults that can have, you know, be on vacation and not have a sitter available that can come up here and be able to all be together.

- People return every year.

They say they're coming for the fishing, but really they're coming for the comradery.

Jeannette Spear was designed to meet full a DA accessibility standards.

We actually have a couple places out on the pier where the railing is built to a lower height so that somebody in a wheelchair can easily fish over the railing.

We also have a Moby Mat that allows wheelchairs and people with accessibility issues to get out on the beach.

- So our memorial fish, anyone can get one.

It doesn't have to be specifically for memorial.

Couple of our locals that have lost their loved one.

Now it's a place where they can come and and see 'em or watch the sunrise, and it's a meeting place for them to come to once, at least once a year.

- Honestly, the soul of Jeanette's Pier are the people who come here year in and year out, decade in and decade out.

We have families who have literally been coming here since the Pier first opened in 1939.

It's really a beautiful thing.

- As I've gotten older, I see kids that I did fishing tournaments for when they were little kids.

They couldn't hardly stand up on a pier, and now they're back bringing their kids.

It's like one big circle.

Everything just keeps coming back.

- Things are kind of different every day, which is what I really love about it.

And you never know what you're gonna see when you come to a fishing pier.

- Every pier has a certain amount of peer rats as they come out and check the waves.

- When I was younger, we would just run and jump off the pier.

I think the statue of limitations are probably up on that by now.

Hopefully.

- They're great people.

Everybody's here.

Most of 'em are locals and they like hanging out at the pier.

Look forward to seeing them every day.

- I would say the core of why people come here to fish is different for each person that comes in, but we just hope it's to come to Avalon and just be part of it and enjoy themselves while they're here.

- Some people aren't able to get into the water, but the next best thing is being over top of it and you can still feel it.

Breathe.

- Just go out and sit down.

You don't have to fish, you don't have to do anything.

You just sit there.

You can hear the waves, see the birds.

A lot of days when I get off, I go out there and I sit and I take it in.