When Do Pompano Run? A Month-by-Month Guide for Florida and the Gulf Coast

Pompano are the fish that make surf anglers set an alarm. They pull far harder than a two-pound fish has any business pulling, they are the best-eating thing in the wash, and they show up in schools that will empty a beach of everyone else's patience while you fill a cooler.

The hard part is timing. Pompano do not follow the calendar — they follow water temperature. Understanding that one fact is the difference between fishing a beach that is loaded and fishing a beach that is empty.

The temperature rule

Pompano are comfortable in roughly 65°F to 75°F water. Below about 60°F they leave. Above about 80°F they generally move off the beach into deeper, cooler water.

That narrow band is why the pompano run is really two runs in most of Florida — one heading south as the water cools in fall, and one heading back north as it warms in spring. If you only fish one, you are missing half the season.

Check water temperature before you check the calendar. A warm December keeps fish further north than usual; a hard cold front in November can push the whole run south a hundred miles in a week.

Gulf Coast: Florida Panhandle through Sarasota

October to November. The run starts as the first real fronts drop water temperature out of the eighties. Panhandle beaches — Destin, Panama City, Navarre — usually get fish first. This is often the best fishing of the year, because the schools are fresh and have not been fished to yet.

December to February. The fish keep moving south and west coast beaches from Clearwater down through Sarasota, Venice and Boca Grande come into their own. Cold snaps can shut it off for a few days at a time; the fishing usually turns back on two or three days after a front passes and the water settles.

March to April. The spring run north. Fish move back up the coast as the water warms, and this is frequently the most consistent stretch of the whole year on the middle west coast.

May onward. Water climbs past 80°F and the beach fishing tails off. Fish are still around, just deeper and further out.

Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas

The northern Gulf runs on a similar but compressed schedule. Alabama and Mississippi beaches see fish in the same October-November window and again in April-May, with a colder mid-winter gap than Florida gets.

Texas is later and shorter still. The Texas coast generally sees its best pompano fishing in spring, with a secondary fall push, and the fish tend to be more scattered than a concentrated Florida run.

The tackle is identical everywhere. A rig that works in Sarasota works in Gulf Shores and works on Padre Island.

Atlantic side: Florida through the Carolinas and Virginia

The Atlantic coast runs on a clearer north-south migration than the Gulf does.

Fall. Fish push south down the seaboard as water cools — Virginia and the Carolinas in September and October, Georgia and north Florida through October and November, and the Florida east coast from Daytona down through Stuart and Jupiter from November into winter.

Spring. The whole thing reverses. Fish move back north from Florida in March, hit the Carolinas around April and May, and reach Virginia by early summer.

The Atlantic side generally needs more lead than the Gulf for the same depth. A 3oz pyramid that holds fine in Sarasota will roll down a Carolina beach; carry up to 6oz and 8oz sinkers if you are fishing the seaboard.

Reading the beach

Knowing the month gets you to the right beach. Reading the beach gets you to the right hundred yards of it.

Pompano feed in the trough — the deeper channel that runs parallel to the beach between the sand and the first bar. They root sand fleas out of the bottom there, nose down, working along the beach in schools.

Find the trough at low tide when you can see the structure. Look for a darker band of water running parallel to the beach, and for breaks in the bar where water funnels through. Those cuts concentrate fish.

Do not cast as far as you can. The single most common surf fishing mistake is throwing a rig straight over the fish. On many beaches the trough is well inside 40 yards.

What to throw

There are two ways to catch them, and both work.

Soaking a rig. A pompano rig with float beads lifts your baited hooks just off the sand and into the feeding zone. The float colour matters: chartreuse and green in stained water, orange and white as the classic sand flea imitation, pink and white on clear calm mornings.

Run two-hook rigs when there is any surf running, since three droppers tangle on a hard cast. Save the three-hook rigs for calm days when the extra bait and extra colour will pull a school over.

Pair with the lightest pyramid sinker that actually holds. Overweighting kills the natural movement of the baits.

Jigging. On the right day this beats soaking bait comfortably, because you are covering water instead of waiting on it. Work a pompano jig in short sharp hops along the bottom with a pause on the fall — pompano hit the drop almost every time.

Tip the jig with a piece of fresh shrimp or a sand flea and the strike rate goes up sharply.

Bait

Sand fleas beat everything. They are what pompano are actually eating, and you can dig them out of the wash yourself with a rake or your hands where the waves recede.

Fresh dead shrimp is a close second and far more convenient. Clam works. Frozen sand fleas work when you cannot get live ones, but they are noticeably less effective.

Whatever you use, keep it small. A pompano has a small mouth built for crushing crustaceans, not for eating a whole shrimp.

The short version

Watch water temperature, not the calendar. Fish the fall and spring shoulders. Find the trough and do not overcast it. Fish the lightest sinker that holds, tip your jig, and use sand fleas if you can get them.

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