Prime Time
Permit

Peter Morse updates the status of those elusive Aussie permit.

Fly fishing, because of its constantly challenging nature, is for most of its practitioners much more than just a means of catching some fish. Anyone who takes up fly fishing is already on the first rung of this sport’s ladder of challenges. In one of fly fishing’s oldest jokes a fisherman who has completed his mortal time discovers he has actually gone to hell when condemned for eternity to fish for one species in one stretch of river. New and highly challenging species and situations are the catalysts for advancing our sport, both personally and collectively.

Saltwater flats fishing demands many skills (especially polaroiding skills) to locate and hunt down fish, then puts your casting and fishing abilities to the test. The fish are often shy and moving quickly, they’re nervous and prone to selectivity.

Flats fishing is a late bloomer in Australia. Golden trevally led the way, but amongst those of us who have spent lots of time peering in
to shimmering shallows for shadows and fleeting glimpses of fish, the Indo Pacific permit has become the most elusive challenge. Captures by Alan Philliskirk, Greg Bethune, Scott Mitchell and others confirmed that these fish could be caught on fly, but considerable skill, some luck and certainly persistence would always be necessary to rack up even a single capture. These elements remain, but recent events suggest that this species may be more catchable than early results indicated.

RARE PERMIT?
Although we were on the right track, we were also labouring under a couple of myths. The first to be dispelled is that these are a rare fish. Not true, they are abundant around many of our tropical sandflats, especially those associated with river mouths. In my experience, along with that of Alan Philliskirk and other North Queensland guides, there are perhaps more permit than any other species on the northern sandflats, and I’m tempted to include queenfish in there—especially those over 5 kilos. Not being a heavily harvested commercial species, there are heaps of permit—you just need to know where and when to look, and to put in the time.

Sandflats, especially those with deep gutters, are the best places to start looking. Permit tend to mill around in the gutters at low tide, sometimes finning on the surface. Look for big broad-sided flashes, not the little winks of mullet and small queenfish. The flashes will give them away, then if it’s a school of more than a few fish you will pick up the darker moving mass, even in quite deep gutters.

Spring lows with a low between 11 o’clock and 2 o’clock, combined with a bright blue sky, give the best conditions. These tides will also leave less water in the channels, concentrating the fish. I have seen schools of 20 permit mill inquisitively around a sinking fly, and others charge but not eat it. I have had them follow a Clouser Minnow almost to the boat, and Alan Philliskirk reports having permit follow closely behind the boat propeller as he slowly motored across the flats . . . a chance look behind and there they were!

You’ll get many shots at permit on the last of the falling tide and the bottom of the tide, and many heart-stopping moments as fish rush and surround the fly—then either spook or quietly swim off—or they’ll completely ignore it. The best reactions often come from a single fish that might be following a shovel-nosed shark or feeding with a stingray. A good cast with a good fly really looks as though it’s going to get a result, but these fish are not so easily fooled!

UNOBTAINABLE PERMIT?
Permit at this stage of the tide do seem almost impossible to catch. We and others have made many hundreds of casts to them, and this has led to the second myth—that these fish are virtually uncatchable.

So, what have we learnt to dispel this myth? To catch permit we have found that, from the bottom of the tide, you must be prepared to put in the time pursuing just them, forgoing all other species in this crucial period. To ignore queenies, goldies and similar distractions requires a certain fly fishing maturity—until you can put them right out of your mind for a few hours each day, you are very unlikely to catch a permit.

When the tide turns a switch is thrown and you need to be ready. Find the sandflat with the most current pushing back over it and you’ll probably find the permit, and they’ll be feeding hard. In deeper water look for pale grey smudges—you’ll learn to tell the difference between these and big mullet. In the shallows, the permit shape quickly becomes obvious—the pale yellow edges to the profile, the dark tipped dorsal fin, prominent eye and distinctly shaped pectoral are all identifying keys—but once you are that close you probably won’t even be able to get a cast at them. Be in position at the turn of the bottom of the tide and have a strategy mapped out because they will be on the move.

PERMIT CRABS?
In spite of there being no crabs found in the stomachs of several permit we have examined—crushed shells were the only evidence of food—they do eat crabs and crab flies. I suspect a crab to a permit is like the single peanut in a dish put on the table at the start of a feast—someone’s going to eat it for sure. Alan Philliskirk told me he watched a school of fifty permit swim past his crab fly . . . but the 49th one ate it!

Fishing a crab to permit requires two essentials. Firstly, the fly needs plenty of weight, although it also has the aerodynamics of a brick. Get used to casting these on long leaders. You need a rod heavy enough to handle the casting—use a 9 or 10 weight if necessary. The second essential is self-discipline when it comes to the retrieve—or the no retrieve. No crab could ever outswim a fish that wanted to eat it. Their main defence (apart from nippers) is to dive to the bottom and bury in the sand.

A fly line that lifts the fly off the bottom is going to be a disadvantage. We have had permit swim over and examine a sinking fly, but not eat it. A sinking tip line gets it down there quickly, and if current acts on the line it will only tumble the fly across the bottom. In our experience it is a mistake to retrieve a crab pattern when fishing for permit, and it takes some discipline to just leave it there.

For example, I was standing on my boat’s poling platform on a recent trip, spotting fish moving into a gutter in front of a group of eager fly fishers. A school of permit moved in and bypassed the flies of the first two anglers but spooked from the fly of the third angler; it happened again before I noticed that he was stripping the fly ever so slowly and this was enough to spook the fish. In the current this would have been lifting the fly off the bottom and it must have appeared unnatural. Staying tight to the fly but not influencing it is crucial.

Earlier this year I poled another angler to within casting range of a big, single permit hanging out with a ray—it was a classic set up, clear sky and clean water with just enough breeze to ruffle the surface. The fly landed with a gentle plop around two metres from the fish and it immediately charged the crab and looked for all the world as though it was going to eat it, but the angler stripped the fly and the fish spooked.

The title of Thomas McGuane’s wonderful book The Longest Silence, comes from those moments when you cast
a fly to a permit and let it sink—and wait, and wait. When we were first learning how to catch golden trevally on the flats I once speculated about how Einstein would have explained the way time seems to stretch and slow down when you are waiting for a fly to reach the bottom—it’s even slower with permit.

Leading the fish will depend on the speed at which the school is travelling, the depth of the water, the sink rate
of the fly, the current speed and the prevailing conditions. I like it good and windy because you can get the fly right at them. Like shooting birds on the wing, calculations need to made constantly and quickly. If the fish are travelling along a contour, predicting their path will be much easier. Once the school has swum past, you can pick the fly up and recast. If a permit eats it, you’ll know all about it.

Not so long ago, the belief that this species was almost impossible to catch kept many from sticking to the task. As I have said, you must be single minded about permit and determined enough to ignore other crab-eating species such as trevally, queenfish and herring. Now that we know they are catchable, and the word ‘fluke’ does not enter the equation, perhaps more will forego the thrills that other species provide and focus on our greatest flats prize, the Aussie permit.

Permit Tackle
Tackle for permit needs to be no more than you would use on most other fish of the same size, however, some specialised additions may have made a difference.
My preference is for a floating line with a clear intermediate tip. Candidates for this include the Cortland Tropical Ghost Tip, a wonderful flats fly-line for shallower water. I have had some success using a Scientific Anglers Quad Tip with the 15 ft clear tip. Scientific Anglers are also producing a floating line with a clear sinking tip section in
a tropical format—this is a beauty because it has a longer clear tip than the Cortland line.

The floating line with a clear sink-tip is a better option than a full intermediate line because it can be picked up off the water very quickly, and the running line portion doesn’t sink around your feet. The longer sinking section also holds the fly on the bottom, not lifting it off the sand, and this is fundamental to success when fishing crab patterns.

Leaders need to be long. I use a 3 metre saltwater tapered leader with a fluorocarbon tippet—1 metre of 6 kg—although we’ve seen permit taken on tippets from 4 to 10 kg.

Email contacts:
Peter Morse: wildfish@lisp.com.au
Alan Philliskirk: wildfish@cairns.net.au