Pompano Fly Fishing Key West

Winter fishing in the Key West Back Country means Sea Trout, Cobia, Barracudas, Jacks, Bluefish and the pee wee Permit AKA Pompano.

They are cute and tuff for their size and you have your hands full with a 7-8 WT fly rod.
Most of the Pompano will be on or near the bottom in the shallow basins and channels, usually 4-6ft so, a slow sink or sink tip line is a good idea.
I use a full floater also and a long leader with a lead eye Mylar Minnow Fly.

Dredging will produce a good jolt/strike and several powerful runs, sometimes he'll come up and flash for you only to dive and smoke off a few dozen more yards.

Sometimes Pompano will FLOAT, holding in the current a few inches down and you can swing the fly infront of the school and watch a strike!

Last winter this happened to us several times and we had a field day landing dozens of Pompano in one shallow basin.

They were apparently sucken in very small minnies that were being washed to them with the tide.
We used a small 1/0 epoxy minnow and the Pompano went nuts, so did we but, we put all but 3-4 back.

They will be much bigger this winter, the one's I released, not the one's I fried in butter!