How to Tie a Pompano Rig for Florida Surf Fishing

Part of Knots & Rigs · All fishing tutorials

Jump to: What You Need · Building the Rig, Step by Step · Beads and Floats: Picking Colors · Choosing the Right Sinker · Baiting Up: Shrimp and Sand Fleas · Fishing the Rig

The pompano rig — also called a double-drop or chicken rig — is the standard surf setup on Florida beaches for a reason. Two baits ride above the bottom in the wash where pompano and whiting cruise the troughs looking for sand fleas and shrimp, and the rig basically fishes itself while you watch the rod tip. Store-bought rigs work, but tying your own costs pennies, lets you control the quality of every part, and takes about two minutes once your hands learn it.

Everything below uses parts you can find in any Florida tackle shop: 25-pound fluorocarbon leader, small circle hooks, a handful of beads and floats, and a pyramid sinker. Tie a few at home the night before, coil them in zip bags, and you can re-rig on the sand in under a minute when the bite is on.

What You Need

• About four feet of 25-pound fluorocarbon or monofilament leader material
• One small barrel swivel
• Two 1/0 or 2/0 circle hooks
• Two small beads and two small pill or round floats
• A sinker snap, or a short loop of line for the sinker
• A pyramid sinker in the right weight for the day’s surf (see below)

Building the Rig, Step by Step

1. Cut about four feet of leader material. Fluorocarbon is nearly invisible in clear Gulf and Atlantic surf and stands up well to abrasion from shells.
2. Tie the barrel swivel to the top end with a uni knot. The swivel stops the twist the surf puts in the rig as it tumbles in the wash.
3. About twelve inches below the swivel, tie your first dropper loop: fold the line into a loop three to four inches long, then pass the doubled loop through itself twice and pull it snug.
4. Tie a second dropper loop about twelve inches below the first, the same way.
5. Slide a bead onto each dropper loop, then a float, so the bead sits between the float and the loop knot.
6. Attach a hook to each loop by passing the loop through the hook eye and over the hook, then pulling snug — this loop-to-loop connection lets you swap hooks in seconds.
7. Finish the bottom with a sinker snap, or tie a simple loop knot about six inches below the second dropper, and clip on your pyramid sinker.

Beads and Floats: Picking Colors

The float’s job is to lift your bait a few inches off the bottom, up where a cruising pompano can see it and away from the crabs that strip hooks on the sand. The bead adds a click of sound and a flash of color as the rig washes around. Bright orange is the classic pompano color — it is said to mimic the coquina clams and flea eggs pompano feed on — and chartreuse and pink are close seconds. On bright, clear days over white sand, some anglers downsize to plain beads only and let the bait do the work. Carry two or three colors and let the fish vote.

Choosing the Right Sinker

Pyramid sinkers dig into the sand and hold the rig in the strike zone, and picking the weight is a simple read of the surf. On a calm day with small waves and little current, a 2-ounce pyramid holds fine and casts easily. A moderate surf or a sweep of current running down the beach calls for 3 to 4 ounces. When the surf is rough and even 4 ounces keeps rolling, either move to the first trough closer in — pompano often feed right at your feet — or accept that it is a whiting-and-catfish kind of day and fish a shorter cast. If your rig washes down the beach within a minute of landing, you are not holding bottom, and pompano will rarely find a moving bait.

Baiting Up: Shrimp and Sand Fleas

Fresh shrimp is the easy bait: buy it fresh, never frozen if you can help it, and peel it. Thread a thumbnail-sized piece onto the circle hook so the point stays exposed, and keep the rest of the shrimp on ice — soft, warm shrimp flies off on the cast. Sand fleas are the pompano’s favorite food and they are free at the waterline: rake or scoop them where the waves wash over the sand, look for the little V shapes in the backwash, and keep them in a bucket with damp sand. Hook one or two fleas from the bottom up through the shell so they stay lively, with the orange egg sac showing if you are lucky enough to find egg-bearing females. Fish-attractant strips are a durable backup that stays on the hook when the bait stealers are thick.

Fishing the Rig

Cast just past the first sandbar or into the deeper trough between bars, let the sinker settle, and reel until the line comes tight. Set the rod in a sand spike and watch the tip: pompano hit hard and hook themselves against the circle hook, so resist the urge to set the hook — just pick up the rod and reel. Check your baits every fifteen minutes or after any tap, because surf crabs and pinfish work fast. Our guide to surf fishing Florida beaches covers reading the water and picking the right stretch of sand to set up on. When a pompano run is moving through, keep a second rig baited and ready so a caught fish never costs you ten minutes of the bite.

Species This Helps You Catch

• Florida Pompano — the fish this rig was designed for, all along both coasts.
• Whiting — Gulf and Atlantic whiting hit the same rig in the same troughs.

Free Florida Fishing Tools

Pompano runs follow the seasons and the water temperature, so before you drive to the beach, check the What’s Biting calendar to see what is running on your coast this month and plan your trip around the best weeks.