Beach Fishing With Paul Sperco Palm Beach/Martin County Area

I hope anyone who was planning to fish the surf this morning took a good look at an updated marine forecast because if you listened to the network weather people on tv you probably didn't fish. The front that slid down our coast this morning gave a window of opportunity to wet a line as the forecasted northerly wind didn't pick up untill late morning. I looked at 3 beaches: Porpoise, Coconut, and Blue Heron before I made my way to Middle Cove. All of the mentioned beach accesses start just south of the Fort Pierce Inlet, and can provide some great pompano action during the season. I walked onto the sand at Middle Cove and was lucky enough to run into friend and local beach expert Barry Richards. Barry was reeling in a bluefish and had a nice 2-pound pompano in his bucket already. A quick move back to the truck to get my gear proved to be the right move as the action was great the entire morning. Jacks, bluefish, whiting, big ladyfish and a limit catch of pompano made for an excellent day. EZ Flea Fishbites and natural sand fleas were the baits that produced the pompano, and Orange Clam and Crab scented Fishbites accounted for the other species. As the case usually is during the early part of the pompano season, you have to play catch-and-release with the pompano under 11 inches in order to get your limit. I probably caught 20 pompano during the morning and it is still great fishing even if you throw back 75% of your catch. Looking at the coming week, tomorrow may be the only challenging day due to the forecasted 20 knot northeasterly winds we are going to see along the coast. Tuesday might be a little iffy early in the day but the surf will be calming down in the afternoon. I hope everyone gets out and bends some rods this week as the action should be great.