I got to see the Nekid ball jig team out there fishing for pompano as well. He gave me a jig to try out. I am saving it for later when I am fishing with a bunch of other people who uses the doc goofy to see how it compare to it.
Long story short, not much was out there. There were a few specks trout being caught at the hole. Beginning of the pier where the wader fish. There weren't much going on. Around 7:45am, I was able to get a decent size pompano... about 12-13". Around 8:30am, I got a nice hit and it turned out to be a 10# jacks, which I drag him to the shore and landed. At the same time, the guy next to me fishing bait got a hard hit. I didn't know what it is since, I have a fish that I am fighting as well. Turn out that it's a 32" cobia and just short. At the same time the FWC was around checking people's fish and I thank them for that!
A few more hours there and everyone started leaving. I was being a hardhead and I was like... well another 15 minutes and I'll leave at 10am. Before you know it... about 3 cast later, I got a hard hit and the fish is running weird. I know I foul hooked the fish and it's most likely a pompano, permit, or a jack. I pulled it close enough and saw a big shadow in the water and figure that it would be a permit, since it doesn't look like a jack and it's pretty big! In the end, I landed that fish and it turned out to be a big pompano.. in the 15-16" range.
Now I am stoked! So I fished a little more and than something big hit again. It didn't run much but it was heavy. Thinking to myself that it's a jack the entire time, until I pulled it close enough. Once it is close, I told my friend it's a permit! There's a nagging feeling in me that it's not a permit, since it didn't run like one and it's way to big to be a pompano. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a huge pompano! It is about 18-18.5" to the fork pompano! Probably weight about 5#. So I ended up with 3 nice pompano!
I gave my friend the 15-16" pompano, so he can gill it up and feed it to his kid.
