The Best Tactics for Spring Permit Fishing Success

Permit can be considered a Jekyll-and-Hyde gamefish. Location, water depth and a few other factors determine which fish you’re gonna get. Anglers who stealthily stalk this wary, prized fish on the shallow flats deal with a lot of Mr. Hydes. Conversely, anglers who prefer to target them out in deeper digs—wrecks, reefs and along some Florida beaches—enjoy the mild-mannered Dr. Jekylls, and the catching is easier. This latter group is fond of saying, “They’re just jacks!” No big deal.

Just the opposite applies to dedicated flyfishers who try to fool them with feathers and fur in water barely deep enough to cover their backs. Fooling and landing one in that way is a big deal indeed, though in recent years, honed techniques and innovative fly patterns have lowered the degree of difficulty a good bit. Some joke that on the flats, you have to somehow “bring out the jack” in them.

The most jaded fly fishers personify them (this writer included!) and call them (bleeping) dishonest, compared to tarpon and bonefish.

Make a Permit Plan

Flats permit have to eat, and they are over shallow bottom to do just that. Not surprisingly, flats anglers who present live crabs and shrimp enjoy better odds of getting a permit to eat. It’s a matter of cutting to the chase. Many skilled permit anglers say they do nearly as well with jigs as they do live baits.

A ¼- to ⅜-ounce skimmer-style bonefish jig cast in a sidearm manner will create the line trajectory that can land somewhat softly, and the truth is, you need to show the permit the goods—no long leads—to get that fish to commit. As is said, bring out the jack!

This fish sometimes hunts in an erratic fashion, changing directions repeatedly. If you cast your bait, lure or fly way out ahead of its path of travel, the fish may change direction and you have to make a second shot. It’s better to cast close to the fish where it may eat immediately as your offering sinks like a fleeing prey item. Jigs and crab pattern flies work best on the sink, with no retrieve or manipulation.

A permit will pin it to the bottom as it would a live crab. The permit likely sees the jig as a small crab, and you can’t go wrong with one of the top crab flies. They all sink quickly (or should) and at a slight angle as the real thing darts for bottom cover in that way. The venerable Del’s Merkin (also called Del Brown’s Permit Crab), Raghead Crab, Strongarm Merkin, Rea’s Triple Threat and the Kung Fu Crab are proven, and some fly fishers have caught flats permit on No. 1 Clouser Minnows, too.

Some of the best scenarios include permit traveling on the back of a ray, or in schools of 3 to 10 fish. The ray-riding permit are looking for food the ray dislodges from the bottom, and of course competition between schoolmates can make them eat more aggressively.

Tackle-wise, flats permit call for spinning tackle in the 10- to 12-pound class, a reel that holds about 250 yards of line, and a 7 ½-foot rod which does well in the distance department with lighter baits, such as a live shrimp or crab. Bite leaders of 15- or 20-pound-test fluorocarbon or monofilament suffice. Fly fishers can choose between 9- and 10-weight rods, a full floating line and overall leader length from 9 to as much as 14 feet depending on wind conditions, tapering to 15- to 20-pound test.

On Gulf Coast wrecks in 20 to 80 feet, the number of bigger fish far exceeds that on the flats, so beef up your tackle accordingly. And if sharks make a showing, think about doing something else for the good of the stocks. It’s just that simple.

It’s hard to beat a live blue crab or swimming crab (quarter to half dollar size) or live shrimp fished on a light jighead, for either surface-milling fish or those a bit deeper over the structure. Wreck permit also occasionally fall for both hair and plastic-tail jigs. In spring, it’s not uncommon to see signs of the fish over wrecks on calm days—they may wake, and even “sleep” at the surface with dorsal fin and tail lobe showing. Always start looking at a distance from the structure before moving in.

How are Permit Populations Holding Up?

Though far fewer Florida anglers target permit than they do tarpon, bonefish and redfish, permit fishing effort seems be on the rise. And yes, there is growing concern for their numbers and habitat in some places.

For starters, this premier gamefish, released as an unwritten rule by flats anglers, happens to be a decent food fish, so a number do end up in the fish box—or, unfortunately, in the jaws of sharks, a growing problem on some reefs where permit gather to spawn.

When asked, late in 2024, about permit numbers in Biscayne Bay, an iconic flats fishery for them, Capt. Carl Ball (www.awolfishingguide.com) indicated a puzzling dropoff for him and his sight-fishing clients.

“It was kind of sudden, not a gradual thing. Two years ago, permit fishing was great. Strong numbers in South Biscayne Bay,” said Ball. “Last year, they just disappeared, and stayed away even during the prime spring season. I am encouraged that permit numbers are improving in just the last 6 to 8 months or so. It’s not back to the 2001-2002 level, but it’s worth our time.”

Ball added that the big flats permit decline in the Lower Florida Keys to Key West “is really troubling.”

Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT) researchers launched Project Permit in 2011 when the Lower Keys Guides Association and BTT voiced concerns to the Florida Fish & Wildife Conservation Commission (FWC). Guides and anglers alike suspected that an apparent permit decline was due to overfishing on spawning aggregations. Hard data was lacking at that time, and FWC advised those concerned that such data had to be produced if the Commission was expected to take the issue to the public. That was BTT’s impetus to ramp up Project Permit.

Ross Boucek, BTT Florida Keys Initiative Manager, considered permit an especially “poor data species” in 2011. That year, FWC established the Special Permit Zone (SPZ) which includes Florida state and adjacent federal waters south of Cape Florida on the Atlantic coast and south of Cape Sable on the Gulf side.

“In the Special Permit Zone, commercial take is prohibited,” said Boucek. “And adjacent to the SPZ we have the Pompano Endorsement Zone, sharing a boundary with the SPZ. So there is allowance for gillnetters that hold a pompano endorsement license to take an unlimited number of pompano.”

Both species share those waters at times so the state allows an incidental bycatch of up to 100 legal-sized permit, so unfortunately, this commercial harvest exists very close to the permit spawning grounds.

Boucek says BTT monitors long-term trends, and they believe the commercial bycatch numbers are sustainable.

“But on the Gulf wrecks that attract permit aggregations, we did some sentinel studies that revealed a concerning number of hooked permit are eaten by sharks, which is also a major problem in other Florida fisheries,” said Boucek.

Are Permit Homebodies?

When asked about the possibility that permit travel from the Lower Keys as far north as the Atlantic Treasure Coast beaches or the Indian River Lagoon, where anglers catch them mixed with pompano, Boucek said that’s unlikely.

“First of all, the mixing in with pompano in that region is a big information gap,” said Boucek. “But we are very sure that permit that we catch and tag in SPZ waters of the Lower Keys do not at all make the jump north across the SPZ boundary in South Biscayne Bay. We have tracked thousands of acoustically tagged fish to prove that. These fish are not as migratory as tarpon.

“A prime example of restricted migratory behavior is a permit that I and colleagues from Canada tagged nearly 5 years ago in the Lower Keys. We used both an acoustic transmitter and an external dart tag on that fish, the dart being the external type of tag our fishing guide volunteers use. Three years after the tagging, Keys guides Nathaniel Linville and John O’Hearn caught that fish only 100 feet from where we originally tagged it! Granted, it did move around the region quite a bit in those years, but it never left the general region.”

A Downward Permit Trend

Besides hard science data derived from tagging, Boucek credits detailed anecdotal information, provided by anglers and experienced permit guides, with helping BTT better understand the fish’s habits.

“Capt. Pat Bracher, out of Cudjoe Key, keeps meticulous catch records which he has shared with us. In fact his notes on declining barracuda catches provided Florida fishery managers with evidence compelling enough to tighten barracuda harvest regulations,” said Boucek. “Bracher prides himself on getting his flats clients a Grand Slam. And he has literally thousands of them to his credit. His fishing trip journal, which he shared with BTT shows an unmistakable downward trend for permit around Key West, which started in the early to middle 2000’s. The trend became apparent in the Lower Keys a bit more recently.”

Threats to Permit Numbers

Other than allowances for some commercial harvest, it’s accepted that recreational harvest puts a dent in the permit stocks as well. Among light-tackle and fly anglers who sight fish for them, release mortality is low due to improved catch-and-release techniques, including minimal time out of the water.

Ross Boucek hopes that anglers of all persuasions better appreciate the permit for its fighting ability, even on nearshore wrecks. “We get the fact that this species is a legal fish for the table, but we think there is excitement to catching a big permit over a wreck, and satisfaction in releasing them, and maybe keeping an occasional fish to eat.”

Bouchek cited BTT’s shark depredation studies on a few sentinel wrecks in the Gulf and some sentinel spawning sites on the Atlantic side of the Keys that hold flats permit.

“We found that about 35 percent of hooked permit are killed by sharks on Western Dry Rocks, out of Key West, and that has been a consistent number before and even after the closure period (April 1 through July 31),” said Boucek.

And it’s believed that up to 80 percent of hooked permit are by sharks killed on some Keys Gulf wrecks and those in Florida Bay just outside the Everglades National Park boundary. And BTT knows that these are not sustainable numbers.

A Surge in the Surf?

The growing number of social media permit holdup photos on Florida beaches makes me wonder if anglers are catching more permit as of late, or if it’s just the surge in angler numbers resulting in more permit landed.

The photo below of a catch on St. George Island, Florida’s northern Gulf Coast, was sent to the Florida Sportsman office in late January, 2024, with the following note: “Neil Worley thought he had the new pompano record at first glance but was surprised to catch a permit.”

It’s true permit eat the same baits used by pompano anglers—sand fleas, cut clam, crab knuckles and synthetic strip baits. The surf permit usually exceed 10 pounds, big enough to pull a surf rod down and force the angler into a sprint to rescue the outfit from the brine.

I personally enjoyed a flurry of small permit (5- to 8-pounders) during a few pompano trips from my skiff in the Indian River Lagoon in April of 2018. My records show we were averaging 15 to 25 pompano a day. On three occasions, we caught 5 to 10 permit on the Goofy Jigs we fished, mixed in with the pomps. I had not caught multiple permit that way in past years. And, it never happened again the following year. Reports were that during that very week, good numbers of bigger permit (10 to 25 pounds) were landed by surf anglers from Jensen Beach to Vero Beach.

Harvest in Special Permit Zone Closed

The Special Permit Zone (SPZ) includes state and adjacent federal waters south of a line running due east from Cape Florida in the Atlantic at 25° 40’ North Latitude, waters of Biscayne Bay south of Rickenbacker Causeway, and south of a line just south of Cape Sable running due west through federal waters at 25° 09’ North Latitude. Basically, that’s Biscayne Bay, Florida Keys, and Florida’s southernmost Gulf waters.

Permit harvest in the SPZ is prohibited April 1-July 31. At other times of the year, regulations for the SPZ are as follows:

• Minimum Size Limit: 22" fork length
• Daily Bag Limit: 1 per harvester
• Vessel Limit: No more than 2 per vessel

Elsewhere in Florida, permit regulations are:

• Slot Limit: Not less than 11" or more than 22" fork length; may possess 1 over 22" included in the per person bag limit
• Daily Bag Limit: 2 per harvester
• Vessel limit: No more than 2 over 22" per vessel
• Season: Open year-round

Allowable Gear

• State waters: Hook and line only.
• Federal waters: Hook and line and spearing.
• Prohibited Gear: Harvest prohibited by or with the use of any multiple hook in conjunction with live or dead natural bait; snatching prohibited Special regulations apply for this species when fishing in Biscayne National Park.

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• This article was featured in the April 2025 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe

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