By Marco Pompano, Surf Fishing Guide
It’s time to Bamba. Hope: that’s all we can do, now that pompano season is just starting. Seaweed is trying to clean up, and after a few Nor’easters, the beach got its runouts and troughs again. I’m definitely camped out. My friend Bobby O. has teamed up with me in the afternoons and I’m watching him run down the beach to his pole. It’s that famous tap-tap-tap, bend-bend-bend. Quite a good hit. He’s on. A nice slab of a pompano comes onto the beach. Take a bow, Bobby O!
My pole has spun around and it’s shimmying. The bite is on! Mine comes rolling onto the beach just a little smaller than his: a nice 15 to 16 inch fat pompano in the slot. Ya, mon! A pompano has to be 11 inches at least to the V in the tail.
Just to let you know, it’s been very hard to dig up sand fleas, or even get them from the bait shops, so I’ve been using live shrimp and crab knuckles for my bait. But, boy, do I miss the sand fleas. We’ve been working on the reels and poles, making a lot of rigs with three hooks on them. Like I said, it’s just starting and it’s time to get ready. Ya, mon!
Pompano is a wild hard fish to catch with a limited season. That’s why it’s so expensive in the market, popular for its sweet white meat flavor. It’s a member of the Jack family. They are toothless and silvery with hardly any markings but a beautiful yellow tinge to them. They are usually found in warm water, 70° to 89°. They typically migrate North in Spring due to the water temperature in the summertime and come back south to Wilbur By the Sea in the Fall. They live three to four years and the typical ones we catch are from 11 to 18 inches, and one to three pounds, but you can also get pompano up to 26 inches, the biggest weighing up to six pounds. The bait I use for them are sand fleas, cut up crab knuckles, and sometimes some live fresh shrimp. And, they are delicious.
So, I’m sitting here on the beach right now with no bites wondering what picture I’m gonna put in the article that I’m writing (right now), since I have no good ones or good fish to show off. As I looked over to my right hand rod, I noticed some stirring happen. Within a second, it bends to the hip, whips around, and is being pulled into the ocean. I just managed to grab it and it’s taking the line like a locomotive. I did not try to stop it, or the fish might just pop off.
As it slows I tighten up just a little and keep reeling. It’s running, zig-zagging at maximum speed. I’m in trouble! Like I said, it’s time to Bamba. I keep reminding myself not to do anything, just let it slow. I’m starting to gain a little. It’s been at least 20 minutes of this. I think I’m starting to gain. I just spotted it in the waves, it’s a permit.
Please, please don’t break off against the sand! Then it flaps hard on the beach. For sure, the best fish I caught this year, and now I have something to take a picture of. I’m now heading to the house to put it on ice. My adrenaline is through the roof. Definitely one of the prize fish to catch down here. People come from all over the world down to the Keys just to catch a permit. They are sneaky, with the best eyes in the business.
As we move it home, putting on the reggae tunes of Jacob Miller, and his song, ‘Rasta Can’t Live In a Tenement Yard’, and starting up the coals and the hickory wood. Me and this permit are heading to the smoker.
