Hot Water Fishing

I hope everyone is doing well this week and had some time to fish over the weekend because it wasn’t too bad for a lot of people. It was a mixed bag of pompano, whiting, palometa and margate. We also saw some black drum make an appearance. You have to fight through the summertime catfish swarms to get to the fish, though.

Water clarity was a bit better than in the past couple of weeks, but it was still somewhat murky. The good news this week is the northeast wind pushing in, which should clean up the beach waters and bring a better bite along with some nice troughs to be dug out on the beach.

Using frozen shrimp pieces and clam strips has been producing the best bites when rigged up on a pompano rig. Unless the waves are pounding, you can get by with a 3-ounce pyramid lead; there’s not much need for sputnik leads in the summertime. Fish have been caught both close in and far out, on both incoming and outgoing tides, so it’s best to just get a line in the water. It does get brutally hot midday, so most people have been fishing in the early mornings and evenings.