Playalinda Beach Pompano

Playalinda Beach Pompano usually gear up during December and continue until late February and this year is no exception.

Although I haven't seen Harry Potter since last December, he just happened to be at lot #10 when I trudged up the walkway to the beach.

I put out my Okuma surf rod with 30 pound PowerPro braid and a 3 oz pyramid sinker just past the first breakers and set up my second "river" rod a bit closer to the surf before walking over to talk to Harry about the fishing.

He remembered me from last year when we were fishing the same area for bluefish in the surf, and we shot the "bull" a little bit before getting down to talking about the fishing conditions today.

Harry had a nice 18" Pompano in his bucket and caught a nice whiting as I was walking up to him.

He said that last week, the Pompano bite was on fire but as suddenly as it began, it came to a dead halt.

I told him that I had the same report from the owner of the bait shop and a couple of other fishermen who hit the beach regularly.

Today, I was hoping to hit the beach on the incoming tide, but as it turned out, I was late again.  The tide was on it's way out and the surf was unusually calm when I staked out my rods.

I told him I was using cut clam and frozen sand fleas for bait and he offered me some of his stash of live sand fleas that he caught all his fish on today.

I gratefully accepted his offering and baited up with some live ones on my rigs.

All up and down the beach there were fishermen with rods staked out but nobody seemed to be catching anything much.

The surf fisherman next to me caught a small Sea Robin and later on an undersized pompano, but all the time I was on the beach, I never had a bite.

It was a beautiful day so I didn't really care about getting skunked, but I was hoping for something.

Harry's friend from up north showed up and as luck would have it caught a nice pompano almost as soon as he cast out.  He is pictured above in the short video.

I spent time talking to anglers and basically killing time until the bite picked up, but it never did.

After about two hours without even a nibble, I couldn't take it any longer and packed up my meager gear to head for the house and some dinner.

As I Harry waved goodbye, I heard him say he planned to be out again tomorrow.

Being Christmas Day, I'm not sure I'll make it, but I certainly hope the action gets better than it was today.

On the way out of the beach, I drove past Eddy Creek to see if any progress was made to the small fishing pier.   I was surprised to see that they have almost totally replaced the pier.

As I drove out of Eddy Creek I couldn't help but think about what everyone said; that even if you never went fishing before in your life, you couldn't help but catch at least a couple of pompano.
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My timing really sucks.

Till next time,
Tight Lines