GOOD BYE TO MY LITTLE
FRIENDS, THE POMPANO
This is the time of year that I’ll be saying Good Bye to one of my favorite kind of little fish
that have been here all summer. Throughout the warmer months, I can always count on them
being abundant in the shallow beach water. Those little guys are the Florida Pompano. Little
baby Pompano, less than an inch long, start showing up here on Tybee during the spring, usually
around late April or early May. As the summer progresses, those little Pompano grow quickly and
steadily, and by August they are about half as big as your hand. So they make good use of our
food-rich seawater and seafloor for rapid growth during their time along Tybee’s shore.
Pompano are a deep-bodied silvery fish. Usually there will be some hints of yellowish-orange
color in their lower fin and tail fin. As they get bigger, the yellow color will develop along the lower
part of their body. They are members of the Jack family, and have the general shape of other
Jacks with forked tails. Throughout the summer, fishermen on the pier and surf fishing will catch
a few larger, mature “pan-sized” Pompano. They give a good fight and are a great fish to catch.
They can grow to a few pounds big.
Many species of the Jack family are not considered great to eat. But Pompano are definitely
an exception. They are considered a prize food fish. In fact, you don’t often see Pompano on the
menu at restaurants or even for sale in a seafood market. The reason is because they are so
good to eat, and fishermen don’t give them up or sell them. When they catch Pompano, they keep
them for themselves! I remember as a kid surf fishing in North Carolina, when we would catch a
hand-sized fish, my Mom would say, “Throw it back, let it grow.” But if we were lucky enough to
catch a Pompano that size, she would say, “Oh that’s a Pompano; we’re going to keep that one!”
As I was saying, we get lots of little baby Pompano in the spring, and throughout the summer
they steadily grow and get bigger. By early fall, they have grown a lot, but still aren’t quite big
enough to eat or to be caught by fishermen. And then, all of a sudden, when we get our first cool
snap – the first hint of autumn, they all leave! One day we will see plenty of them in the surf
zone, and the next day they are gone. The cool snap triggers them to leave the inshore water
along Tybee and migrate down to Florida for the winter. They will spend the winter in the Florida
inshore waters. And of course they will continue to grow. Within a few more weeks, they will be
nice catchable, pan-size fish; and those Florida fishermen will catch OUR Pompano all winter! I
don’t think it’s fair!
So this is the time of year when I’ll be saying “So Long” to those active, plentiful little Pompano
that we have watched grow up all summer. I hate to see them go, but we can look forward to a
new generation of little ones showing up next spring to spend next summer with us.
Dr. Joe Richardson (Ph.D. Marine Sciences) is a retired marine science professor with 40 years
of research and teaching experience along GA, the southeastern coast and Bahamas. Besides
research, he conducts Tybee Beach Ecology Trips (www.TybeeBeachEcology.com) and frequently
posts pictures of their findings on his Tybee Beach Ecology Trips Facebooks page.
Beach Walks
with Dr. Joe
By Dr. Joe Richardson
20 TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | OCT 2018
/(www.TybeeBeachEcology.com)