Flyfishers get in on the act too.

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 also 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.

FS