Jack and I hit the beach before dawn, mostly because Jack has a theory that fish don’t bite during the day. Never mind the thousands of fish I’ve caught in the middle of the day. In any event, we marched down the beach to the spot where Jack said the pompano veterans like to set up. He was armed with his two long surf rods while I brought along two much smaller inshore outfits, determined to prove to Jack that you can catch pompano just beyond the shore break.

Jack started out using live shrimp while I began to throw my little green jig. Within ten minutes, one of Jack’s long surf rods was bending under the determined pressure of a hooked fish. A few minutes later the first pompano was in the bucket. Trouble is, Jack forgot to secure the bait bucket. When he looked around to rebait, there was no bucket in sight. An errant wave had reached out and pulled it in. There went three dozen live shrimp, a bait bucket and an aerator pump. Kind of hard to be excited about one pompano when you just made an offering of $30 or so to the ocean gods.

But Jack is nothing if not prepared. Frozen squid, clams and sand fleas were also part of his arsenal. Turns out clams are the preferred breakfast of champion pompano. Within thirty minutes two more were in the bucket. That’s when one of the residents of the condos behind us wandered by and peered into the bucket. As soon as he saw three fish he was hustling home to break out his own surf rods. And apparently he couldn’t keep a secret. Within a few minutes an army of surf fishermen were trooping down the beach, casting envious glances at our encampment right in the preferred spot.

Action continued strong for the next hour or so, at least for Jack. He was in precisely the right place and landed five more fish while fishermen on either side of us got one or two. I, unfortunately, had to eat humble pie. My pompano jig, so effective for catching pomps in the river, just wasn’t up to sea duty. Despite tipping the jig with squid and clam, I got nothing. By the time we called it quits, there was a line of pompano fishermen stretching almost out of sight in both directions. Before we could rinse off our feet and tackle at the boardwalk, two fisherman had moved into our spot.