Missed Summer Slams: Permit aren’t the hard part.

Posted under fly fishing reports by Will Benson

Don’t tell that to Dave and Jeff!  Poor guys have been trying to catch a permit for 13 days now and haven’t quite got there.  Everything that can happen has happened to these two guys.  Out for the first time trying to find fish and trying to get all the angles right is hard work.  Dave and Jeff have 2 more days until their summer vacation is over and I’m hoping they make good on their promise to bring one home and nail it to my front door!  Maybe they’re pissing off the gods with their insincere rhetoric. I don’t know but they need to follow the Bear around and watch while he slays perms.  The brothers Holeman have posted an astonishing 8 for 10 in the last 2 days.  I hope Bear’s luck stays with him through the 2008 Del Brown Permit Tournament, which happens next week.  Looks like the weather is going to hold out for the show.  It’s all up to the fish now to show up and put their tails in the air.  I wanted to share a report that my client Dan Hall recently submitted about our recent fishing trip together.  
June 30 Key West Report.  I just spent 4 days fishing off Key West with Capt. Will Benson , my second trip with him.  My first day with him last year yielded 3 permit on the fly, after which Willy told me I ought to quit right there because it would never get any better.  I was dying to get back and see if he was right…  I have now officially caught the permit bug!
Day one sucked… a big storm system to the west kept us off the water the first half of the day, and when we finally got out, the permit were very shy about tailing.  Their tails would pop up once or twice and then vanish.  We got on a few fish, but never really got the feeling they were eager to eat anything.  Also, since I moved away from Hawaii, my saltwater fly fishing has dropped from 100 days a year to about 5.   Talk about being a bit rusty!
Day two was a bit better from a weather standpoint but the fish didn’t quite seem to be “on” yet.  We had some rolling tarpon and some tailing permit, as well as “laid up” permit, but I pretty much couldn’t put things together and the few times I was close, the fish weren’t interested.   Needless to say, casting to Key West permit and tarpon is a bit different than casting to Hawaii bonefish.  Not necessarily harder or easier, just different.
Day three we found a few nice schools of tarpon in 10-15 feet of water with 2 foot seas and lots of wind.  Will got a nice workout there.  The first fish to eat unfortunately ate the fly in plain sight, and of course I set the hook so fast I pulled it out of his mouth even before his lips were closed.  Number two fish yanked on the fly line and came undone before I had a chance to set the hook.  Permit were around in nice numbers… but still too much rust.  Note to self…  listen to what Capt. Willy says.  Note number 2 to self…  you can’t be shy when casting to permit!!!  OK, so finally we get to day number 4!  Once again, pretty rough water at the deeper tarpon spot from the day before, so we tried inside for one quick drift, no fish around.  Will limbers up his sore muscles and sends the boat back into the deep water and waves, and with my lucky Key West permit hat on for the first time this trip, I promise to catch a fish out of the first school so we can get back in the calm water.  And that is exactly what happened!  Right off the bat we see a nice school of fish and I manage to hook and land about a 45 pound fish.  What a rush!  This guy jumped and jumped until we finally set him free.  Knowing that we had been seeing lots of permit, we decided to hit one bonefish spot really quit just in case we wanted to complete a slam.  We did see two bones there, but no luck as I tried my “permit cast” on them.  A little too aggressive!  We quickly crossed a channel and here comes a school of permit.  OK, time to use the permit cast.  Drop the freakin fly on his head…strip twice and connect.  Sure enough, it works! 1 permit in the boat.  It is amazing how good Capt. Will is at this, and it is amazing how good the whole thing works when you listen to what he says!  So, now we have a permit and a tarpon landed, and the day has barely started.  Do we go looking for bones, or do we keep on the permit, knowing full well we have seen lots of permit here in the last few days.  Easy decision actually, we had a great feeling about the permit and decided to stick with them.  Good thing too, because I managed to land two more permit and one more tarpon in the next few hours. When the tide ran out, we made a final 20 plus mile run at top speed to take on last look for bones, but didn’t see any.  What a great day.  I am now a hooked permit angler.  The best thing about permit fishing is this- when you and the guide do EVERYTHING right in casting to active fish, the fish will eat the fly without hesitation.  If you do anything wrong, it won’t.  Pretty simple.  In Hawaii I have had plenty of bonefish just flat out refuse perfectly presented flies, and have caught quite a few with just stupid luck.  Permit aren’t that way.  Whether you catch a fish or not seems to be almost entirely based on whether you can do everything right or not.  Obviously there are times when they won’t eat, but so far I can pretty much blame myself for the missed fish, and thank myself (and Capt. Will even more) for the caught ones.  What is really amazing is Capt. Will’s attention to every single detail in the game, from the way he holds his hand on the push pole, to the way you turn your wrist on the cast, to the exact color of the hackle on the fly, to the way in which you crouch on the boat deck… just amazing.  After every single blown shot, Will (politely) gave advice on the next minute detail I needed to work on to get to the top of my game.  And every now and then, when I really needed it, he told me in a not so polite way!  After a few days it paid off in a big way with a 3 permit, 2 tarpon day.  What a trip!