Fun Fishing for Pompano

Sleek Panfish Strikes for Surf & Pier Anglers in Warm Water

The warmer the water gets, the more surf and pier anglers on the southern Atlantic Coast look to the sleek, silver-yellow pompano to provide them with sport and great eating. The trusty, easy to reach pompano journey up from the hot waters of the south in the spring chasing food into the suds of the Georgia and Carolina beaches. They stick around for an extended stay that will end only when the waters grow cold again in the fall.

Even now pompano are cruising up our beaches and a more fun-in-the-sun fish you've never met. This neon glow, multi-colored hipster fish looks like it just cruised in off the interstate from Ft. Lauderdale and is at any moment prepared to leap from the water and check out the action down at the Myrtle Beach strip.

With a body that combines silver, green, and sun-yellow, along with streamlined fins to help it jet through the water, a pompano flashes under the waves and on the hook, and you can even see one on occasion skipping over top of the water, leaping joyously on its side only to belly-flop back down so fast you'll wonder if you actually saw it at all.

One great thing about pompano is they are a fish of the surf, often turning their bodies sideways to get into very shallow water, and so available to any surf or pier fisherman casting a plain old bottom rig. Another great thing is pompano are among the very best fish in saltwater to eat. Anglers who don't want to do all of the work fishing for blues and Spanish requires, or who lack the patience for flounder fishing, find the perfect solution in the quick-hitting, hard-fighting pompano, who grab their baits on a dead run that will jerk them awake quickly on a warm, lazy day.

The key to catching a lot of pompano is to know why they are here. It is to eat sand fleas. Give a pompano a beach swarming with sand fleas and he will flash and leap about all day. It is no coincidence that folks start feeling sand fleas beneath their feet about the same time pompano really start hitting in the surf. If your kids are catching sand fleas and bringing them to you on the beach, it is time to go fishing.