This one was landed and released just off the beach.
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The look on John Brenner’s face said it was time to move, but some inner sense told me to stick it out, that the fish would be here.
“Let’s give it 10 more minutes,” I told Brenner, knowing I could stretch it to double that. “If we don’t see them over this next reef, then we’ll move on.”
We were sneaking down the beach in 20 feet of water along a stretch of patch reef while staring into gin-clear water that had a substantial population of sheepshead and porkfish, but not much in the way of the studs we were targeting. As we approached a break in the reef bordered by scattered large rocks, I caught a glimpse of white and tilted my head for a better angle against the glare. As the shapes came into focus, I almost dropped my rod.
“Eleven o’clock, 30 yards,” I puffed out in a hushed voice that’s more a force of habit than preventative technique. “Just this side of that black edge. See the lips coming at us?”
Brenner fired a live crab on his 12-pound spinning rod, and I made no hesitation to follow it with a backup bait. As the school moved down the reef, and the grouping of white lips materialized into dark tails and pale yellow backs, John got his first good look at the fish.
“Those permit are huge! I’m doomed with this tackle,” said Brenner. “That lead fish must be 40 pounds.”
“It’s mostly open water, although they’ll definitely run for the reef at some point,” I replied.
As the conversation was taking place, the school swam by our baits and one fish bobbed its head out of the water. Both lines started moving, and we set the hooks in unison.
For a second I thought we had the same fish, but Brenner’s fish kicked in the afterburners, leaving a gulf between the two lines. Seconds later my fish made a similar run and then dug through the reef, and I could feel the line skipping off the rocky shelf before it went slack.
“Well, you’re the only game in town now,” I said at almost exactly the same time his own line parted.
He turned and stared at me and I knew he was thinking I’d just “put the mouth on his fish.” At the time, the only thing I could think to say was, “Jinx.”
The author hoists one in the 30-pound range.
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At least it brought out a laugh and some humor to the moment. We’d both been spanked by massive permit that took us to school and threw our books in the sand.
“That was cool,” I said, finally gaining back my vocabulary. “Let’s do that again!”
“Again?” he replied. “You mean they’re not gone?”
And so it happened that John Brenner got his first day of pain over the Jupiter Island sand. We quit around noon to run to some wrecks and look for cobia that were supposedly moving north prior to the July moon. Our hooked-fish to landed-fish ratio on permit looked more like a day of tarpon fishing, with each of us hooking close to 10 fish and landing three. All of our fish topped 30 pounds, which is a pretty respectable permit to find within sight of the beach and 150 miles from the Florida Keys.
On the run back to Stuart, we stopped off at a small wreck in 40 feet of water to continue the cobia hunt, and watched several pairs of giant permit swim just under the surface along the outskirts of the wreck. By that time neither of us wanted to lose another fish in the reef, so we passed on the shots and headed for the inlet to see if any tarpon were in town.
The Florida Keys get all the publicity about permit. However, during summer when spawning populations of these fish move along the beach and out to the shallow reefs, fishing along both Atlantic and Gulf coasts can be some of the finest in the world. It’s not the same game as sight-casting to finning fish in two or three feet of water, but that’s about the only thing missing. Given my current proximity to the nearest bonefish flat, I’ll take it on any trip.
Lifelike patterns like this are especially effective.
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Warm water is the most important requirement for permit to migrate along both coasts, so that means the heat of summer is the time to find these fish. In early spring they can be encountered off deeper reefs and wrecks, but for the most part these fish don’t show up with any consistency until the sweat drips down your back in the predawn darkness. The hotter the air and water, the more these permit seem to thrive.
July and August are the most consistent months for permit from Palm Beach to Sebastian inlets, with calm seas and clear water to go along with the soaring temperatures. By early September, the first of the tropical fronts come through, bringing high seas and surf that muddy the water close to the beach and push the permit back out to the offshore reefs. Surfers may like the waves, but silty or milky water leaves these fish susceptible to predation, and the same blacktip and bull sharks that favor fall mullet along the beach will dog the permit schools.
Once permit move out to deeper water, the first cold front signals a drop in water temperature that coincides with a general movement of fish to the south. A good number of fish remain along the Gold and Treasure coasts, but those fish tend to be scattered and not the tight schools found during the summer spawn.
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Back when I worked as a lifeguard along the beaches of Martin County, Hobe Sound Beach on Jupiter Island was the place to fish for permit during fall, when the fish worked their way south along the shallow beachfront reefs. Here, a live sandflea meant to attract the first of the winter pompano would regularly end up on the menu for roaming permit. I’ve seen surf rods jump out of sandspikes with such force they never touched the beach before hitting the water, with a sprinting angler just behind. These fish average well over 20 pounds, and are followed by the smaller school-size fish under 10 pounds that tend to push south with the first big showing of pompano, typically in late October or early November.
The fall fish are inconsistent at best, but the summer months can regularly produce multiple schools of fish on every outing. As the permit work their way up the Southeast Florida coast, the fish stop off on rockpiles, inlets and other structures that offer a steady source of food and comfort. As long as the fish aren’t pressured too hard, they’ll remain in that general area for several months at a time.
Depending on the size and number of fish, the schools may be extremely sensitive to the sound of an outboard, or just slightly nervous when a motor is running in the area. There’s a huge value to chasing permit with a trolling motor or by anchoring or drifting. The larger the fish, the more wary they are.
A lot of the time I use the trolling motor in short bursts of low power, letting the blade turn slowly to minimize the sound emitted under water. Once I get close enough to the structure for a good cast, I’ll drift along with the motor turned off. Big permit tend to drift or float along just under the surface, occasionally bobbing on top or finning as they investigate small clumps of weed. Patience is the key to fooling these fish, as is a cast placed in the fish’s path well before it comes into range.
It’s not often that crustaceans fall out of the sky in the open ocean, and a permit may treat a blue crab or live shrimp falling on its head like an alien attack. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth a shot, as one of the largest permit I’ve ever had hooked on my boat fell for a live crab that landed on its tail, spinning with such speed and agility that my angler thought the fish spooked and was in flight and it wasn’t until the line came tight that he learned the crab was lunched.
Flyfishers get in on the act too.
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There’s a reason inshore anglers pursue permit with the same passion dedicated to other high-profile gamefish. The fish simply never give up, and the fight is not over until the fish is in the boat. The big fish that ate that abovementioned ill-cast crab was hooked on 20-pound braided line, and 30 minutes into the fight it remained just below the surface 10 yards from the boat. I use a large, long-handled net for landing permit, but the fish stayed two net lengths away for about five minutes. I asked my guest to palm the spool and put a little more pressure on the fish, and it responded by taking off on a run that forced me to fire up the outboard to prevent being spooled. Five minutes later the fish broke us off on a clump of reef in 30 feet of water. In all my days of fishing I’d never seen a fish make a run like that so far into a fight.
Just about any structure along the beach can hold spawning permit, but there are some rocks and inlets that seem to attract fish more than others. Palm Beach Inlet seems to hold more fish than those on either side, and the St. Lucie II Power Plant outflow gets its share of fish annually. Unfortunately, those fish get a lot of pressure, so the permit learn quickly to avoid approaching anglers. When the pressure gets too great, these fish move on.
My best permit spots are small rockpiles or reefs in 18 to 30 feet of water, several hundred yards off the beach. These natural reefs are part of a long chain that stretches the entire coast. For some reason the permit prefer to hold around small collections or clumps of rocks less than a hundred yards long instead of working up and down the larger stretches of exposed reef. I locate my fish by scouting in the afternoon, when the sun is high and I can see deep into the water. Once I find a school, they’ll likely remain in that area for some time, and I can return on several occasions to fish them.
Live crabs are the obvious preferred baits, but not all tackle shops carry them. Most serious permit anglers set crab traps or catch their bait with dip nets before heading out. In most cases, figure about a dozen crabs per angler when the permit fishing is good.
And if you don’t use all those crabs you caught, save them until you get home. Place them in a small plastic bag and freeze the baits for the next trip. A dead crab works just about as well as the live baits, particularly when the permit are over deep structures and the crab can be pinned on a jighead or slip-sinker rig and lowered down deep.
Live shrimp work well in clean water and are a lot easier to come by than crabs, and they, too, can be added to a naked leadhead for deep, structure-oriented fish. A whole shrimp can also be added to a chartreuse, yellow or white jig, a combination that is extremely effective for casting to moving fish.
Naked jigs are also effective, particularly on the smaller school-size fish under 15 pounds. Larger versions of the same jigs that fool pompano in the winter months will take permit in the summer, with 1⁄4- to 1⁄2-ounce the favored sizes.
Sandfleas are a fallback option when shrimp or crabs aren’t available or when you encounter permit unexpectedly. Since you’re already near the beach and the prime permit months are al
so when the surf is flat, in a pinch you can run the boat up to shore, jump out and catch a few baits by hand.
Permit are tough enough to catch on natural bait, but for a real challenge try getting one to eat a fly. School fish can be very competitive and thus responsive to a variety of flies from a brown or pale yellow Clouser Deep Minnow to any of a multitude of shrimp and crab patterns. My personal favorites are the weighted McCrab fly and a Merkin pattern with a chartreuse throat.
The key to catching permit on the beach with any consistency is fishing for them on a regular basis to learn the little nuances of their travels and feeding habits. If you can locate permit on a regular basis, you will eventually catch them with considerably more frequency.
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