Watched the sun rise above the horizon in South Melbourne Beach revealing clean calm water on the empty beach. All of the live sand fleas that I had were miniscule. Today’s quest was as much about finding bait as it was catching fish. As soon as I had my poles set they started to bounce. One after another and ofttimes doubles, undersized pompano were caught and released. Mixed in the small pompano were some decent whiting and several too small to harvest just yet. Tiny jack’s and bluerunners added to the mix, rapidly diminishing the little bait that I had.

With a slight break in the action, a lone unidentified shark swam by in the wash with its dorsal and tail fin fully exposed in the shallow water. The action resumed and I finally landed one keeper pompano around 10am. Spinner sharks were putting on an aerial show that I was enjoying until one grabbed a fish on my retrieve!

The tide was nearing high and I was out of bait. As I brought in my last pole, one more whiting was added to the cooler. On the day, 21 whiting and 1 pompano were harvested, 5 small whiting and 30+ undersized pompano were released along with numerous Jack’s and bluerunners. I never did see a single pod of sandfleas.