Perplexing Permit

The waving golden tails and gleaming silver backs of feeding permit in shallow water are enough to reduce the most seasoned fly- fisher to tears of frustration. Cast after perfect cast is denied time and time again.

Permit, otherwise known as snub-nosed dart, oyster pompano or pumpkin-heads, belong to the family Carangidae, making them closely related to the trevallies. This becomes apparent when they bake line off the reel at an alarming rate across the flats. However, unlike trevally they primarily gorge on mussels and other bivalve molluscs.

Permit have earned their reputation as a formidable target for fly fishers. Hard to find, harder to stalk, unforgivingly difficult to fool and damn near impossible to figure out. I practically stumbled on them one day whilst struggling to keep a boat from drying out. It wasn’t until weeks later that the penny dropped.

Months and months went by without a further sign. Finally one day a school appeared ahead of me, and not a fly rod in sight to confirm my suspicions. When they finally started tailing the flats I felt a new frustration welling inside. But whether it’s the flats, a solid reef structure or an open beach with a rolling swell where plumes of stirred-up sediment betray their presence, they are forever difficult to fool on fly.

THE PUZZLE

What are the chances of a permit taking one counterfeit mussel amongst thousands of real ones? Don’t think about it too hard or you might do yourself an injury. Instead think about this: with all that sifting and foraging going on they’re bound to turn up something else that takes their fancy. Crabs perhaps?

It’s no secret that crab imitations catch permit. If you look closely enough at the exposed flats as the tide ebbs, you may see crabs of varied sizes, shapes and colours foraging freshly grazed mussel beds, or scurrying across areas of shell grit indicating that permit might frequent the areas nearby. Surely a well-presented crab pattern couldn’t miss, could it?

I’ve been fishing for permit along the West Kimberley coast for about four seasons now, with limited success for the first two years. Last season I had a cracking time, with some respectable captures pushing the upper limits of the estimated size range. An orange-legged EP crab imitation took many fish. This season it failed until one day, after I’d presented it to countless fish in several hundred casts, it finally caught one small permit. Was this due simply to my persistence, to a mistake by one fish, or to any of the few changes I’d made to my tactical approach? How can a pattern work so well day in day out, and then months later, just get shoved to the side like a toy on Christmas Day?

MOVE IT OR LOSE IT

There are many views on how to incite a bite. Some insist you should not move your fly once it’s in the fish’s sight. Others suggest stripping once, ahead of the leading fish, and then leaving it static. This might be all well and good for places that have minimal tidal influence and clear water. The Kimberley doesn’t. The open beaches and fringing tidal flats are compromised by a number of factors.

Turbidity early in the neap cycle means that the fish can be hard to spot, and even if you can see them, their own chances of seeing even the most accurate of presentations are limited. Open waters generally suffer from varying degrees of swell, from little knee-high rollers to shoulder-high shore breaks. Finally, at the extremities of the most fishable neap phases you have to deal with drift from wind and from heavy current flows that fill the estuaries and fringing flats rapidly.

All these problems can be mitigated to some extent. You can choose to avoid turbid conditions completely, though this only leaves about four practical days per month to fish! You can avoid swells by finding fish in sheltered parts of the estuary systems, though you will be more affected by current. Bow-mounted electric motors will hold you quietly in place whilst pinpointing feeding permit, skirting the issue of wind and tidal drift. However, in a really dynamic permit haunt, the water is always moving around a great deal and your line is going to drag the fly around anyway. Any resulting small belly or slack on the water can result in lost sensitivity, with the angler missing subtle takes.

On any given day your rate of retrieve may vary from small figure-eights right up to full strips, depending on what is occurring around you. Typically a full retrieve will be slow and in tune with the rhythm of the swell or the current movement. Figure eights will keep you in contact with your fly in shallow water, which when fishing over broken bottom and mussel beds helps prevent snagging and spooking the always-alert fish. I find that when casting to big schools of permit it really becomes a numbers game. The initial presentation to the leading fish is always important, but once the leaders move on, varying the retrieve between smooth and deliberate to well-spaced short, sharp strips may raise the interest of the more inquisitive fish.

Whether casting to feeding fish that are milling around, or casting to sporadically feeding fish on the cruise, keeping your fly amongst the action and in their field of view will increase your chances. Permit seem to have incredible eyesight and possibly an even keener sense of smell. Their olfactory sense isn’t much help to fly fishers, so keeping your fly where they can see it is essential to success.

PREDICTABLE AND PUNCTUAL

Permit seem very habitual by nature. If you spend enough time working the tides, the moon phases and the weather, you’ll find that the fish show up time and time again at key haunts and follow basically the same routine day in and day out. One habit appealing to fly fishers is that they tend to feed and appear most comfortable in water between one and two metres deep. Intermittently they can be seen tailing in knee-deep water, nose to the grindstone, sifting through the benthos or grazing reef structures for mussels and other shellfish.

As the schools move off into deeper water as the tide drains away, some fish seem to feed deep while smaller numbers circle around on the surface in a habit commonly called ‘daisy chaining’. I believe this to be a defensive adaptation to predators, with the surface fish serving as a look-out to the deeper feeders. It appears to be much easier to hook permit when they are doing this, providing you can avoid spooking the fish at the surface whilst getting a fly deep to the prospecting fish. Perhaps those feeding in this manner are less focused on shellfish and are willing to feed more opportunistically.

Anticipating the path of the school and getting your fly there in advance helps avoid spooking line-wary fish. Longer fluorocarbon leaders can also help. The combination of heavy flies, long leaders and a 20 knot breeze isn’t pretty. However, clear conditions mean even more scrutiny from these highly-focused fish, meaning that a longer and finer leader is practically inescapable even if the wind is up.

EYES ALWAYS ON THE PRIZE

Maintaining focus on a school can be pretty demanding. Most ‘Mexicans’ just can’t keep their fingers off the trigger with massive queenies, diamond and golden trevally zipping around within casting distance. Composure and focus in locating and stalking permit can be a seriously taxing task. Long days searching far and wide for them can finish in a dead end, or with that nagging queenfish hurtling around the flats at 100 kph with a Clouser snagged in its dental work. Still, it could be worse, right?

These days can also turn on a five-cent coin when you least expect. The fish suddenly show up unannounced in a haunt that you’ve passed by a dozen times earlier that very same day. The critical thing is then to keep tabs on them at all times, not least when fighting them.

A second pair of eyes is priceless when sight-fishing the flats and beaches. Your partner can keep an eye on the evacuating school as you fight your permit. In the exciting event that you actually land it, your mate can then quite easily navigate towards the hopefully still-feeding school and have a whirl at fooling one for himself.

Permit have a bad habit of just dropping off the face of the planet if you lose sight of them for even a second, especially in a raging Kimberley tide, and if the water’s a little coloured. If you can keep a good eye on them, there’s nothing to say that you can’t track a school of feeding fish for hours. Make the most of it if you find yourself in this situation.

Having found them, the battle is getting them to eat. It is possibly easier to sell ice to Eskimos! Make as many accurate casts as you possibly can. The more you can get your fly in front of them, the more chance of your fly getting noticed. Don’t persist at trying to cast at fish moving away from you. This always ends in tears. As the fish contentedly move off, the average proud-as-punch fly fisher will try to persevere in making that cast. It is normally an extra sloppy ten-metre presentation that still falls short and is instantly eaten by a pint-sized queenie.

Believe me, if you’re on foot and trying to chase these guys down, something is going to fail. Be sure to stay hydrated — even a small backpack hydration system can save you from a certain fate. Normally it’s your exhausted arms and then your jelly legs that give out. Humbled, you watch a cruising school of permit idle past while you lay incapacitated, unable to cast. Make two or three casts to a school if you think you can afford it, and then up stumps and get ahead of them again, remembering to drink and breathe where possible.

It’s practically a workout chasing these fish down, physically and mentally draining. Give yourself some space to settle and make a solid cast ahead of the school. The bigger fish I see are almost always detached and from a low angle invisible, just ahead of the main school.

SCRUFFY WILL DO

Some people say that fly pattern, colour and size are crucial to success, and no doubt all these points are valid on any given day. However, I believe that above and beyond all, the important thing is making every presentation count.

There are some intriguing flies on the market aimed at the intrepid permit hunter (the Avalon fly for example). Many are intricate and complicated beasts designed more to fool and tempt the angler. More suggestive patterns can spark the fishes’ interest and are normally more durable and easier to cast. Keep them simple, and simply keep them seen. Hell, when permit eat my scruffy half-baked imitations it proves they must get hungry at some point!