PUMPING POMPANO

Pumping Pompano in Sarasota Bay 

Monday morning August 27th was an ideal day for the pompano bite in Sarasota Bay. Full moon (new moon also works), morning incoming tide, a reasonably cool breeze before the mid day sun arrived. Usually on Mondays I am on an  offshore gig, however due to the preceding positive factors my buddy Bill talked me into a pompano pier outing. Since Bill is one of the master pompano “pumpers” in the area, I agreed to cancel my offshore trip. 

We arrive at the Tony Sapretto pier which is located under the east end of the causeway going over to Siesta Key near downtown Sarasota. The pier is near  Hart’s Landing bait shop. Daybreak was at seven, approximately when we arrived. From what I learned, pompano do  not bite aggressively  at night. We quickly got set up at one of the three key pompano spots on the pier before the sun barely raised it’s head. 

Light tackle, six foot rods will do. I spooled with 20 pound Ohero Dynema braid. Good stuff, Dynema is thinner and stronger than the Spectra fiber used in many of the  older established brands of braided line. My low profile baitcaster was in “lock down” mode, when these little guys hit, you do not want them running into pilings, no line holds up to oysters.  

We used  “Silly Willy” pompano jigs of the 3/8 ounce variety with the small teasers about a foot above the main lure, yellow lures  with pink teasers. The Silly Willy pompano jigs are designed to emulate a sand flea bouncing a puff of sand dust off the bottom, these lures are easy to use and can be deadly. We fished the side of the pier the tide was leaving from, the north since we had an incoming tide.  

We commenced to drop our lures slightly up under the pier. When the lure hit bottom and settled, we rapidly twitched the rod twice, lifting the tip approximately six inches each time, my fishing  rod had a stiff tip (Okuma im7 Solaris). If your fishing pole is has a softer tip you may need to work it twelve inches or so.. After four to six twitches, a foot to eighteen inches of line was let our and when the lure settled the twitching began again.  We repeated this procedure alternating twitching and letting line out until the lure no longer held the bottom. The bottom is the best place to hook pompano although occaisionally they will bite higher in the water column..   

Over the three hour flow of tide I saw 20 pompano caught. A fair amount for the four regulars working the pier. As a warning, do not tell anyone you are going pompano fishing, you will get more requests for the tasty filets than you catch! 

Captain John Guy 

Fishermen’s Headquarters