Pompano Fishing (Part I) - The Discovery

Rod bouncing wildly in the spike with an urgency you've never seen before.  Line goes slack the rod shifts in the spike and comes to a standstill.  You run to grab it and reel and reel until you catch up to the bait eater.  You spy the line in the water and see it going down the beach.  Then suddenly it starts going up the beach.  Then down...the up...until finally you get it in.  It's flat yet full bodied, silvery on the sides with yellow on the belly.   You look at the ID guide to figure out what it is.  Then the regs to see if you can keep it.  16", good!  Into the cooler he goes.

You wonder exactly how much meat you're gonna get off this fish since it looks pretty big but it's also pretty flat.  Then you remember the fight and how your heart pounded when the like went slack.  You didn't want to loose him.  You remember the side to side battle that you'd never seen before.  Most fish just tug and pull and shake the body.  This one tried to find different avenues of escape.

You get home and tell your friends what you caught. One of them tells you the best ways to cook 'em and promptly invites himself over for dinner.  Split in half right down the middle.  Lightly salted with a dab of butter and placed in the oven on broil.  Grilled at high temperature.  Smoked with a spicy wood. 

You take your first bite.  Mmmm, very flavorful.  Not fishy but definitely full of flavor.  Then you discover although it's flat it is full-bodied and there is a ton of meat on this fish!  Wow!  You file away the lesson, great fighters and delicious eats!  Now you can't wait to go fish for some more!

...coming soon Part II - Fishing for Pomps, is it an Art, Science or What???