Volume 9, Issue 3

Page 7

Well, it's time for another Keys' trip.  This time we're headed to Islamorada, rather than to Key West, as in past years.  By fishing closer to home we will be shortening the travel time and we can fish two full days, rather than one and one-half.

 

Eleven of us will leave Ballantrae on January 7 in a three car and one travel home caravan, visit with the Captains and then have dinner and drinks and share travel stories - something funny always happens on the way down.  At 7:00 AM on the 8th the fishing begins.  When we return to the dock, the fish will be cleaned and we will bring it to a restaurant for cooking.

 

On the 9th we will fish for a full day and head home with the catch.

Hopefully (and optimistically) we will be able to locate a sufficient number of coolers to hold the entire catch.  Photos, results and "fish stories" will follow in the February Angler's Tales.

 

For those of you who could not make this trip, the Club may be scheduling a Key Largo fishing trip in a few months.

 

Bill Scalia

The best answer?  Yes AND No!  The first couple of weeks in December gave some very hopeful signs that our northern friends had arrived.  Flats from the House of Refuge all the way to the Power Plant contained skipping pompano.  Two or three or even four at a time would be skipping out on contact with the boat or in it’s wake as the stirred up bottom released it’s cache of crabs and other small crustaceans.  This was by no means height of the season type of activity.  However, with enough patience you could generate one or two pomps an hour – enough for a great dinner.

 

Best of all, in contrast to the past few years, these “new” pompano were quite a bit larger on average than the past few years.  3-4 pounds seemed to be the norm with the smaller 1-2 pounders the exception – although it can be argued that the smaller ones actually taste better.

 

However, the last 2 weeks of December have seen a reduction in both the skipping fish and the number caught.  Pompano can be a frustrating fish.  There is really no way to figure them out even though we keep trying (What else are you going to do?).  It’s possible that temperatures, reverting to a much warmer level than usual, slowed the migration and drove them further off shore.  It’s also possible that they never did arrive and those that did just kept moving on.  Certainly there has yet been no real evidence that the schooling common to pompano has happened.  Maybe they’re not hungry.  Maybe they had an argument with the wife.  Who knows?

 

This scenario is much like what happened last year – but is not that unusual.  What did happen last year is that we had a continual onslaught of polluted release waters from Lake O that dirtied not only

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