Velcro crabs are the latest hot crab patterns.

For two hours we had shots at feeding and tailing fish every six or seven minutes. I don't remember a morning when I'd seen so many calm, feeding permit.

I was poling while my friend Dave was casting. Dave is a super fly fisherman from Islamorada, and a whiz at catching bonefish on a fly. But expertise with bonefish was giving him trouble now, because he kept using bonefish techniques on permit.

A fish would appear a hundred feet away, working its way toward us, tail up, then down, then up again as he scoffed up goodies off the bottom. I would swing the bow of my skiff to the right, giving Dave plenty of room for his back cast. When the fish moved to within 60 feet, Dave would make his cast, placing the fly just where he wanted it. The trouble was, he wanted it in the wrong place.

Every time he cast he dropped the fly several feet in front of the fish. Great for bonefish. Not great for these slow moving, feeding permit.

The best way to catch a feeding permit on a fly is to hit the fish right next to the nose. Let the fly sink, and hope the fish takes it while it's sinking or as it hits the bottom. Sound crazy?

Veteran Key West permit guides Gil Drake and Tom Pierce will tell you that over half of their clients' fish are caught this way, without the angler so much as twitching the fly. You can look at it this way: Put the fly so close to the fish that he doesn't have time to think about it, only time to react. Give a permit time to consider a fly, and the chances of him taking it are slim.

I explained this to Dave, and he agreed--and conceded that after years of casting flies to bonefish, leading them was so ingrained in his head that he just couldn't make the fly land so near a fish. I understood his problem. Many other good anglers have had the same experience. It's natural to worry about the fly spooking the fish when it lands on them. And that does happen sometimes. You've simply got to ignore the fish that spook and play the odds. You'll have more takes casting close than you will leading the fish.

Put the fly on the permit's nose--that means two feet or less in front of the fish.

If the fish rejects the fly, retrieve it erratically, then stop retrieving and let it fall to the bottom, where the fish will have an opportunity to pick it up. The best way to know for sure when the fish picks the fly up is to see him do it. Normally, the fish is moving toward the boat and/or the boat is moving toward the fish. With the gap between the fish and fisherman constantly closing, it is difficult to feel exactly what's going on with the fly. If you can't see the fly, or see the fish eat the fly, you need to keep the line tight enough so you can feel him take the fly.

That's tougher with permit than most other fish. He's prone to pick the fly up very gently, then quickly realize it's really not a crab, and spit it out.

As fish go, permit can be pretty smart. But there are some things you can do to give you an edge.

During the retrieve, always watch the fish. If you see his head go down near where you think the fly is, get any slack out of the line at once, and if you feel some resistance, immediately set the hook with a long strip.

Some anglers, when they feel the permit is about to take the fly, sweep the rod sideways to tighten the line instead of stripping. The sweeping method may work for some, but it does present one glaring weakness. Suppose a permit chomps down on your fly at the end of the sweep. He better chomp down hard enough to hook himself, for with the rod out to your side at the end of the sweep, you won't have enough leverage to set the hook.