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Updated: May 18, 2024 @ 7:00 am
Capt. Chuck Rogers holds a nice Tampa Bay pompano taken on a jig from a shell bar. This is the time of year he experiences some of the best pompano fishing. The bite will remain solid until water temperatures drop much below 68 degrees, Rogers said.
This whole pompano preparation by Capt. Chuck Rogers is just one of many ways the tasty fish can be plated. He considers the species one of the best on the table.

Capt. Chuck Rogers holds a nice Tampa Bay pompano taken on a jig from a shell bar. This is the time of year he experiences some of the best pompano fishing. The bite will remain solid until water temperatures drop much below 68 degrees, Rogers said.
This whole pompano preparation by Capt. Chuck Rogers is just one of many ways the tasty fish can be plated. He considers the species one of the best on the table.
It’s the holiday season — that most wonderful time of the year when the pompano are biting better than ever in Tampa Bay.
Longtime bay guide Capt. Chuck Rogers of FinSanity Charters looks forward to the bite every fall and he’s been scoring some very nice catches over the past couple of weeks.
“It’s the one style of fishing where I prefer using artificials over any natural bait,” he said.
Rogers likes the Doc’s Goofy Jig, a banana-shaped lead jig designed to be bounced along the bottom, where schools of pompano hunt for small shrimp and crabs. His top jig colors are white, yellow or yellow and white, and he prefers the quarter-ounce size. He also like the added bucktail teasers, often white or pink.
He ties the jigs onto a short length of 20- to 30-pound test fluorocarbon leader. The 30-pound may seem like overkill, but it sometimes is needed to prevent cut-offs if other fish like mackerel or ladyfish are taking the jig. Ladyfish are not a bad omen, he added, as he often finds they are mingling with the pompano. All his pompano fishing is done on light spinning outfits.
There are three primary places and styles of pompano fishing.
Bridges: The pompano like to feed around the bases of bridge pilings. Rogers ties up to a piling or anchors, scrapes some barnacles from the piling with a shovel or spade to chum up the fish (pompano love barnacles) and drops the jigs into the chum cloud, bouncing the jig on the bottom.
Bars: Shallow shell and sand bars are scattered around the open waters of the Bay. They protrude from the water on low tide but when covered, the pompano move up onto them to feed, falling back as the water recedes. The key here is to fish when the current is flowing, as that’s when the pompano bite best. He uses a medium fast retrieve, allowing the jig to bump the bottom and kick up puffs of sand that signal to the pompano that there is something there to eat. He keeps a tight line when allowing the jig to fall back to the bottom after twitching the rod tip, as pompano often strike on the fall.
Beaches and beach passes: Pompano cruise the swash channels – ditches of sorts – just off the surf line along the Gulf beaches. The jigs will work, but here many anglers prefer to use natural or live baits. Frozen sand fleas are a favorite, as are live shrimp. The disadvantage of either is that they attract far more undesirable species, including pinfish, lizard fish and others that pick the hook clean. Some like using a pre-made pompano bait rig for surf fishing that uses a small float to keep the bait just off the bottom. The Gulf passes are another prime place to find pompano at this time of year. Favorites are Bunces Pass and Pass-a-Grille. Jigs or bait work equally well along the sandy bottom of the passes.
A trick Rogers uses to help locate pompano in the bay is to run zig-zags at high speed in his boat, watching the motor’s wake. Pompano disturbed by the wake will leap, or skip across the surface, giving themselves away. Where one is spotted, it’s a good bet there are more.
Pompano are great sport on light tackle, and even a small one can put up a respectable fight. The minimum size limit on pompano is 11 inches from the nose to the fork of the tail and anglers are permitted to keep six per day. The season is open all year. The prime fall and winter fishing is from now until the water temperatures drop below 68 degrees, at which time pompano begin to migrate farther south in search of warmer water.
While some of Rogers’ anglers are strictly sport fishing and release their pompano, the species is one that most like to keep at least a few of for the table. Rogers considers them among the best eating fish in the sea. An experienced chef, he has two of his own recipes for preparing the fish on his website at www.fin-sanitycharters.com — Panko pompano with creamy grits and fresh pico topping, and Pompano A La Chuckie.
The famous dish many know is Pompano En Papillote, or pompano baked in a paper bag or paper wrap with crabmeat, shallots, butter and parsley leaves that originated in New Orleans.
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