ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ZACHERY DYKE
Spearo, fisherman, and passionate home cook. I enjoy harvesting my food from the ocean and sharing it with my friends and family. Follow along as I use species local to Florida to make incredible meals you can make at home.
The Inspiration For This African Pompano Recipe
I’ve always been a big fan of pork ribs, since I was a little kid. It wasn’t until about 3 or 4 years ago, that I discovered how delicious fish ribs were, as well! The ribs are an often overlooked part of the fish that commonly get thrown away after the fish has been filleted. Sometimes, with smaller fish, it makes sense to leave the rib meat on the fillet and just remove the bones. With larger fish, however, such as this African Pompano, it makes sense to remove the ribs separately, and serve them as their own meal.
How I Got This African Pompano
This was one of the most special fish I have ever harvested. I had gotten off work around 3pm, and my buddy and I decided we wanted to go fishing/spearfishing on a chunk of reef in about 55ft of water off Long Key. The afternoon started pretty slow, and while the water was already clear, the viz continued to get better with the tide.
I had a flasher rig deployed off the anchor line in hopes that a mackerel or Yellow Jack would come in, but the main species I was looking for this day, was Black Grouper. I made a dive down near the flasher rig and headed straight to the bottom to see if a Mutton Snapper or a grouper would come in. To my surprise when I got to the bottom, I looked up to see a school of huge African Pompano!
Without hesitation, I immediately shot the closest one to me, though they all were in range. By the time I got to the surface, he had just about spooled all the line off of my reel, and the fight was on. I yelled to my buddy that I had an AP on. He was fishing on the boat, so I told him to pull the anchor because the fish was starting to drag me away.
After about 20 minutes of tug-of-war, (I didn’t know how good the shot was and I didn’t have another gun), I finally got my hands on him! I couldn’t believe how big he was or the fact that I saw him on the reef in only 55ft. I bled him, threw him in the cooler and headed back to the dock. This fish made several meals for everyone in the neighborhood over the next week!
