Thread: Pompano Jigs

Got these at Bass Pro online. Kind of light weight but they look good. Even with 8lb line I'm not sure I will be able to cast them very far into the wind.

I like the looks of 'em!

Hope the Pompano do too.

Originally Posted by chillinfish

Hope the Pompano do too.

3/8 oz is probably okay to get the bait out there, as long as the wind isn't against you. I may order a package, too, and experiment using them with a sand flea flavor enhancer next spring.

I think they might work better with a "Grave Digger" jig head on them. The ole Grave Digger kicks up a nice puff of sand when you lift and and let it drop back to the bottom. Pompano key in on those little puffs of sand when they are feeding.

These are on a painted weighted head-just no heavy enough unless they are feeding real close to the beach.

Have you tried using these in tandem? I had luck one year throwing two regular pomp jigs in less-than-clear water. I tied the first one onto my fluorocarbon leader with my regular uni-knot, but left the tag end really long. I tied the second jig onto the tag end with a uni-knot, too, about 7-8 inches from the first one - maybe a little less.

It would throw a long way and seemed to attract the pomps into striking, though oddly, the first one got as many hits as the end one. I need to revisit that technique again this year! As I recall, I used a small black swivel instead of using [my usual] uni-to-uni knot because of the off-color water and because this was an improvisation and the fish were biting. I wanted to get my line in the water ASAP. In this case, they didn't seem to mind the small swivel.

I haven't been down to use them yet but I thought about rigging one on the bottom leg of the "river rig" and using a live sand flea or cut shrimp on the top and using a "goofy jig" instead of a pyramid weight. This should make it heavy enough to cast into the wind from the surf. The bass fisherman in me likes casting and retrieving a rig while watching two others with live bait set in sand spikes. I have only caught a handful of pompano with jigs but it is a lot of fun. I seem to catch a lot of small rays, burrfish and undersize flounder with jigs.

When I fish in the Spring, I like to drop by the bait shop and pick up live or fresh-dead shrimp (not dead for two days and on ice). I like to put a piece of peeled shrimp on the pomp jig hook and I fish it similar to the way I fish a weightless worm for bass. I let it fall, pick it up off the bottom and let it fall again. When a pompano hits the jig, it's a lot like the (((TIC))) that you feel when a bass bites. You have to set the hook right then. They hit the jig on the fall, so the trick is to make long casts and make it fall a lot.

One of my favorite times of the year to fish is the very end of March to mid-April, when the sheepshead are loving-up, there are some big spanish schools, and the pompano are in, hitting jigs, shrimp (fresh-dead peeled or live), sand fleas, or ghost shrimp. Some of the biggest Spanish I caught all last year would only flash at artificials, but they were tearing up large live shrimp, fished with a small egg sinker or no weight. As long as the water isn't stirred up by storms, a fellow should be able to catch all he wants to clean.

If I'm going to pick a single day out of the year to fish, it's -- no joke -- April Fool's Day. There's Cobia, pompano, redfish, spanish mackerel, and sheepshead - all fish that I target and they're all usually "in" then. Also there's whiting, black drum and flounder, so it's pretty much a Spring Smorgasbord that first week of April!