On both coasts, big pompano are no longer just a memory.

And while pompano are scrappy fighters, turning their flat side to the battle and sometimes leaping, light spinning gear with 6- to 8-pound test is plenty in open water. Pompano are not toothy or particularly tough on line but the ladyfish who sometimes hang with them are and String often uses a short piece of 20- to 30-pound mono leader to prevent cutoffs.

While it's always more fun finding fish on the flats, when they turn scarce, look toward the deeper water of nearby passes.

Fishing the deeper water and using the heavier hair jigs, String recommends casting uptide and allowing the lure to get to the bottom before twitching the rod. With a running tide the most important thing is to try and keep the slack out of the line so that quick, solid hooksets are possible.

In addition to jigs, good deepwater baits include shrimp. Fiddler crabs are recognized as an old standby and sand fleas are among the most prized pompano baits. They can be rigged on a bare jig or on a bottom rig with a half- to three-quarter-ounce egg sinker.

Beach anglers particularly are partial to the fleas and use them with great success in the warmer months when the fish are in the surf.

Another great pompano technique is fishing bridge pilings. Spring, late summer and fall will find good populations of fish feeding in the eddies that form downtide of pilings. Capt. James Wisner of Tampa has long fished the bay bridges by dropping live fiddlers into the currents and using just enough egg sinker to keep them on the bottom. To get the bite going he carries a flat-nosed shovel to scrape barnacles from pilings, which drift back with the tide and make the ultimate pompano chum.

One word of caution: When fishing around pilings it is a good idea to upgrade the tackle just a bit. Wisner likes 12-pound mono and a 20- to 30-pound mono leader just to have an edge if the fish try to do an end run around a barnacle-encrusted piling. This style of fishing frequently results in some interesting incidental catches, not the least of which may be jumbo sheepshead or black drum.

But while these methods are sure enough ways to tie into some pompano, it is the flats fishery that is capturing imaginations. It is refreshing indeed to see a fishery with such bright prospects and to speculate about just how good it may soon be.

The Pompano Weren't There and Now They Are: Is That Scientific Enough for You?

The statistical evidence isn't there yet to support it but even hard-to-satisfy scientific types have a pretty good idea that the net ban in state waters is playing a big role in the apparent rebound of pompano.

Dr. Randy Edwards, a staff scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory, is in charge of fish procurement for the lab. Ladyfish are among the species routinely netted to feed the aquarium fish and pompano are finding their way into those "legal" nets in bigger and bigger numbers.

"There's just a lot of pompano--on the flats, in the passes and on the beaches," said Edwards.

"It's about what you would expect following the net ban."

Himself an occasional angler, Edwards grew up on the east coast of Florida and remembers beach fishing for pompano from the beaches and piers being a big part of everyday angling life. He has never fished for pompano in his new home waters for the simple reason that "there never were enough to mess with." But he's having second thoughts now. The reports he's getting and what he's seen with his own eyes is more than encouraging.

"It's [the pompano rebound] not just an anomaly," said Edwards. "It's pretty obvious they're a lot more abundant now."

Peter Hood, an assistant research scientist with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, spent two years studying the life cycle of the pompano. Although there are no hard numbers which can be used to assess the pompano stock at the present, the presumption is that there will be less fish mortality now that netting is illegal.

Hood said commercial net harvesting accounted for 60 to 80 percent of all pompano landings prior to the net ban. Recreational fishing continues to account for a portion of landings and there is some degree of commercial hook-and-line fishing to take into account. But with the net ban there are certain changes in the fishery that can be expected. Numbers of fish available is one but another is an increase in the average size of pompano caught.

Hood said pompano reach sexual maturity at about one pound or an age of about one year. This size of fish accounted for most of the commercially harvested fish prior to the net ban. Considering the amount of time that has passed since the net ban, reports of more 2- and 3-pound fish being caught by sport anglers is not surprising, said Hood.

"We may see a lot more 2- to 3-pound fish," said Hood.

One-pound fish that would have been netted a couple of years ago have been able to grow and "Given the amount of time since the net ban," those fish would be 2 to 3 pounds now, he said. Many factors will determine what happens with the pompano population in the future, said Hood. Pompano, like many fish in the jack family, are prolific. With their mortality rate going down due to the net ban, there is potential for an increase in abundance and average size, he said. Other factors to consider are whether recreational fishing for pompano increases in the years ahead, said Hood.

One thing is certain. Hood said he would like to see a study funded to assess pompano stocks. He believes it may be the ideal fish by which to measure the impacts of commercial netting. Unlike trout, which were netted and caught by recreational anglers in substantial numbers, pompano primarily were harvested via commercial nets. How healthy the species is now that nets are gone could be a very telling statistic, he said.