Pompano are suckers for jigs.

It's a bit like watching for shooting stars. Your gaze fixes on the rolling wake that spreads out in an ever-widening V behind the boat.

From this frothy tear in the Gulf you try and conjure up one of the most amazing sights in angling--a skipping pompano.

Turned fully on its flat side, a startled pompano hurls itself across the water's surface, skipping like a flat rock thrown with a perfect sidearm toss.

It's an age-old way of locating this highly prized little fish but until recently a rare sight. But voters did away with gill nets and the apparent result is what many see as the start of something big. The excitement isn't just that there appear to be more fish, but that they are bigger and moving off the beaches and from under bridges and piers to the flats, roaming in schools unlike anything anyone has seen in recent years. What it means for anglers is they are getting a taste of a fishery they never dreamed possible.

Nowhere has the impact been so great as it has in Sarasota Bay, where schools have invaded the flats. Anglers there can't remember ever seeing anything like it. Boats drifting over the Middle Grounds, a large sand-and-grass flat just off the Mote Marine lab in Sarasota Bay, are catching pompano with ease.

"It's just like drifting and jigging for trout," says Capt. Roy String of Sarasota. "Some days are better than others but on a good day it's about as easy as any fishing you'll ever do."

String talked about the development of the fishery as we motored out to sample it one day recently. It all began in the fall of 1996. At that time, however, anglers and guides alike thought it might just be a fluke. But the fish stayed. They stayed through winter. They still were there in the spring, summer and fall. And they were there this day.

"Just a gold grub tail and a quarter-ounce jig," promised String.

"What, no bait, not even a tipper?" I asked.

"Nope, don't need it," he said.

He wasn't kidding. We got on the water about 2:30 in the afternoon and the tide had just started to fall. String set up on a drift and within 10 minutes my light spinning outfit was throbbing, the reel's drag sounding off with a steady "zllip-zlllip."

String hooked up about two minutes later. I got another and a fourth came on board. I had one real stupid smile going as I alternated between thinking it to myself and bursting out loud to String: "This is too cool."

We'd caught about a dozen when we took a break. And as impressive as the number of fish was the quality of the fish. These were not tiny surf fish but thick 2- to 3-pounders. A couple each were in the livewell and were destined for the dinner table. String asked if I wanted to keep on going. I did but we didn't. Aside from the approaching thunderheads, I somehow felt like I'd just gotten away with something I shouldn't have and maybe I should just quit and think about it for a while.

Catching that many pompano in such a short time by simply drifting and jigging a flat just wasn't something I was used to doing.

As we fired up the motor and moved off the flat, I kept looking back. I was still smiling. Wow! Pompano.

The trip was about par with what String and others have been experiencing in the area. He's had some days of two to three dozen fish and left them biting. Local anglers are in on the boom. No longer do passing boats make wise cracks about rookies drifting over sand bottom. Those rookies are usually on the pompano and having the time of their lives.

String says there is little doubt in his mind the rediscovered fishery is for real. He also says there's only one logical explanation. The nets went away and the pompano fishing got hot. The telling sign was the showing of fish on the flats. While Sarasota's deep passes always have held some pompano, catching a fish on the flats was strictly an accident prior to the net ban. The other thing was the fish were bunched up in large schools and tended to stay that way. And while spring and fall have been the hot season for pompano in Sarasota, the fish have not really gone away in the past couple of years, said String. They may seek the refuge of deeper water when it gets too cold or hot, but by simply changing his fishing tactics, String has been able to capitalize on pompano most any month of the year.