Mayan Permit
The Mayan civilization that ruled the Yucatan Peninsula from 250 AD until the arrival of the Spanish possessed a sophisticated knowledge of the solar system, and a highly advanced calendar that mysteriously ended in 2012. Some scholars and Hollywood executives interpret this as a prediction of the end of the world. I take it instead as a timeline for getting my first big permit—something, say, over 25 pounds?
If the world is going to end soon, it’s past time to start completing the fly-fishing bucket list. At the top of that list for many fly fishers is “catch a permit” or if you’ve already done that, “catch a bigger permit.”
Trachinotus Falcatus
Permit (Trachinotus falcatus) live the western Atlantic from Massachusetts to southeastern Brazil. Their prime habitat is from Florida through the Caribbean, with excellent fishing in the Florida Keys, Bahamas, Cuba, Belize, Honduras, and especially Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
At the very epicenter of this geographic range is Ascension Bay, perhaps the world’s largest permit nursery and feeding grounds for adult permit. The bay contains more than 250 square miles of sand and grass flats, broken by deeper cuts, channels, and blue holes created by the limestone geology of the Yucatan region. This contiguous, shallow permit habitat is completely enveloped by the 1.3-million-acre Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that comprises nearly a third of Mexico’s entire Caribbean coast. It’s the largest protected area in the entire Caribbean, a place where the mangrove forests, sandy beachfronts, and other important habitats are protected from developments such as private homes, massive hotels, and the accompanying sewage, freshwater extraction, loss of wetlands, and degradation of water quality.
This preserved habitat makes Bahia de la Ascension a bonefish and permit factory, and a place that will forever remain quiet and undisturbed—the polar opposite of Mexico’s biggest tourist destination (Cancun) 120 miles to the north. Only about 2,000 people live in the biosphere, most in the small fishing towns of Punta Allen and Punta Herrero, where the local economies are based on lobster fishing, catch-and-release sport fishing, and water-based ecotours, where tourists snap photos of seabirds, turtles, and rare saltwater crocodiles. Many of the bonefish and permit guides here are also lobster fishermen during lobster season. They understand that their business depends on protecting all the natural resources, and they are excellent stewards.
Playing the Game
Permit are widely regarded as the most difficult flats fish to take on a fly. If you use live bait and conventional tackle, however, they aren’t nearly so elusive. Charter captains in Florida and elsewhere can rack up impressive numbers by chumming over a wreck, and then throwing a live crab—impaled on a hook—into the fray.
On the flats, where the water is skinny and the permit are always registering a “red” threat level, fly fishers use visual cues only, and the keen eyes of a wary permit can be frustratingly discriminating.
In the close quarters of flats fishing, especially in places like the Florida Keys where the fishing pressure is high, shots at a half dozen permit can be counted as a good day. It’s a game in which—back at the bar in Islamorada or Key West—you hear anglers bragging about numbers of shots at permit, or having a fish move to their fly. Actually landing a fish is rare enough that you are left to celebrate the smaller accomplishments.
Ascension Bay, however, can be a game changer—not because the permit are that much less wary, but because of the sheer number of opportunities. At Ascension Bay, the combination of an abundance of protected habitat and relative lack of harvest equates to a great many permit. It’s one of those rare places where you can selectively target permit every day and, weather permitting, have a reasonable chance of success.
On a return trip to Pesca Maya Lodge in June 2009, I set out to count how many “shots” I had per day, but lost count due to the fact that I had not predetermined what counted as a shot (and what didn’t) and the number became unrealistically large. What you don’t want is a shot at a permit going away, a permit too close to the boat (less than 40 feet) and probably already spooked, too far out of effective casting range, and permit moving fast and not feeding. Most importantly, you don’t want second, third, and fourth shots at a permit, or school of permit, that did not eat the first time and are probably aware of your presence. (You can get into the game of intercepting the same school of permit repeatedly, a practice that keeps you casting but rarely pays dividends in fish brought to the boat.)
Discarding all those instances—which happen many times during the course of a day, but don’t really “count” as the best scenarios to catch permit—we had at least 12 to 15 opportunities daily to cast at permit or schools of permit feeding slowly toward us, where we spotted the fish at over 100 feet and were able to deliver the fly at ranges of 60 to 80 feet.
Permit abhor boats. I don’t know if it’s the slap of the ocean against the hull, or the high silhouette of a fly fisher casting from the bow (or both), but they frequently spook, or at least are reluctant to eat, inside of 60 or 70 feet from the boat. Our very best opportunities came when our guide spotted two or three large permit, or larger schools of permit feeding at a distance, and we quietly slipped into the water and waded to intercept the feeding fish.
One of the peculiarities of Ascension Bay fishing is that the guide normally has an apprentice working with him. It’s the only place I’ve fished where two anglers in a boat have a 1:1 guide to client ratio. When the client is casting from the boat, the assistant guide mostly watches and learns.
However, when you slip into the water with the guide, the assistant takes the platform and the two become an effective fire team, with one holding the high ground to observe the feeding permit from 20 to 50 yards away, and the other coaching from your left shoulder. Often, the guide crouching in the water with you cannot see the fish when they are far off, and he takes directions from the platform until the permit move close enough to spot from knee-deep or waist-deep water.
Using this tactic, I’ve had feeding permit move past my fly and continue feeding to within two rod lengths. If you freeze, they move around you as if you were driftwood.
Because they can’t see or hear you as easily as when you are in a boat, you can cast shorter distances—40 to 60 feet instead of 60 to 80—and as a result you’ll have better accuracy, and be better able to deal with the ever-present wind. The fish also seem less nervous, and more inclined to eat.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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