Pompano in NJ

[shresearchdude]

Curious about if anyone's caught a Pompano in NJ this past year or ever. This is not related to rules or regs but an aquaculture idea...

[Duffman]

Did not click on the link because although I’ve caught pompano in NJ I am not awesome by any means ��

Have caught pompano and other warm water fish right outside your work John. Late August into early Sept. The summer of ‘23 was particularly good when the bay was flooded with spot and croaker. The tropical fish were all mixed in with those schools as well as porgies,kingfish, juvenile flounder and fluke, tinker Mack’s etc.

I’ll send you a PM on the exact location.

[jmurr711]

yup first 1 back in 09 in brigantine, see a handful every summer there with the kings & spots

[shresearchdude]

Thanks for the input so far. I've caught a few by accident and they had always been less than a year old and like other occasional summer visitors had likely been swept up and deposited inshore and north by accident. There are probably divers that have seen them, but I was really fishing to see if any size one's ever make it back north.


I didn't do any survey trips at all last year due to family obligations on land.
Lots of luck in 2026 all!!

JR

[jmurr711]

Originally Posted by shresearchdude

Thanks for the input so far. I've caught a few by accident and they had always been less than a year old and like other occasional summer visitors had likely been swept up and deposited inshore and north by accident. There are probably divers that have seen them, but I was really fishing to see if any size one's ever make it back north.


I didn't do any survey trips at all last year due to family obligations on land.
Lots of luck in 2026 all!!

JR

i have never seen any bigger than maybe like a foot-14 inches on the beach like a decent nj porgy

[JettiCrawler85]

Was finishing up my 2024 Fluke season at the IBSP jetty. Saw a gentleman in an RV pull up around 3pm and put some rods out into the pocket with float rigs.

He was running the same rigs I see guys down in Florida run for Pompano.

I asked him what’s going on and he said just getting ready for the Pompano to start biting!

So they are around - not sure the numbers but they are around.

[reelgood]

caught a bunch of smaller ones in the lbi surf very late summer.....mixed in with big Spot, small blues and kingfish......also saw a very large pompano caught at the Barnegat inlet....

[bulletbob]

for as long as I can remember, every late summer all sorts of fish that are normally seen in sub tropical and temperate waters are caught from IBSP and south.. Over the years I have caught fish I could not identify several times, so nothing would surprise me being caught from around Barnegat Inlet southward in NJ.. I don't recall a lot of those tropical fish being caught say from Shark river and north over the years, but I am sure others have,, I did not know this until this thread but I read that Pompano do migrate north/south so no surprise that some are caught off so. Jersey beaches. Jersey is a weird state really.. Not many places you can catch a Cod and a Grunt on the same party boat fishing with a piece of clam... bob