Fishing for Permit on Rubble Flats

I began working my way across the flat as the light of the dawn sky slowly overtook the glow of the full moon. There was just enough wind to ripple the surface of the small surf rolling gently across the reef and spreading onto the flat. As I stripped out the usual fifty feet of fly line, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Glancing to my left, I saw the wake of a permit slowly cruising across the flat. I checked the knot connecting my urchin fly pattern to my tippet and false-cast to get fly line out of the rod tip. The permit tailed 40 feet away.

I made a false cast, and then dropped the fly four feet in front of the fish. The unweighted fly dropped slowly to the bottom, but the fish moved off to the left without seeing it. I made another cast, placing the fly a little closer in front of the slowly moving fish. As the fly dropped, the fish surged quickly forward. I saw the end of the fly line jump and set the hook with a strip strike.

The fish gave a small head shake, rubbed its nose in the bottom, then bulled fifty feet, rubbed its nose again, and surged another fifty feet. I followed after it as best I could, getting closer to the reef and all of its sharp coral with each step. Then, suddenly, the fish had had enough of the shallow water and bolted through the reef. The rod captured the vibration of the fly line scraping across the coral as it passed through the reef-fraying leader, shredding fly line, and testing the durability of the backing. I lightened the reel's drag and followed the path of the line as quickly as I could, carefully picking my way through the maze of mostly dead coral, freeing the line from the labyrinth of the fish's pass through the reef. All the time, the fish was still heading seaward, by now into the deeper water outside the shallow reef. Then suddenly the line was free, the curve in the backing quickly straightened-the fish was still on!

I was able to apply some pressure, and the fish slowed and finally stopped taking out line. It began swimming back and forth in the deeper water. As the fish began to tire, its dorsal and tail fins broke the surface. I slowly gained the edge in the battle for backing and finally the fly line. I began to walk back to the flat and the fish followed, tired now and finning at the surface.

As I guided the permit over the reef, the sight of shallow water gave it new energy, and the fish rubbed its nose on every coral head it passed. I worked the fish onto the flat many times, only to have it regain its strength and rush back into the reef.

Suddenly the situation worsened-after bulling its way into the reef once again, the fish refused my pressure pulling it back to the flat and began to swim back and forth in the reef. I followed as best I could, rod held high as I wove my way through the coral. Then it happened. I lost track of my footing, tripped on a piece of broken coral, and went down. Full body. Flat on my face. Rod, still in hand, fully submerged, an extension of my sprawled right arm. I was completely soaked. I regained my footing and brought the rod back into the upright position. Water gushed off my wide-brimmed hat and flooded from my soaked shirt. I couldn't believe it-the fish was still on! Then I felt a stinging pain in my legs. A quick glance down revealed a little blood, but it didn't look bad. My attention returned to the fish with even greater focus than before.

The fish continued to move back and forth across the reef, but this time I stayed put. I didn't dare try navigating the reef maze again. And I was starting to feel the pain of the coral cuts on my legs. I eventually gained enough line so there was only twenty feet of fly line and leader between us. I could clearly see the iridescent glow of the permit's silvery sides and the yellow hue to its belly brightened by the battle. Even from the side, I could see its shoulders were broad. The fish was tired and had conceded, so I began walking it back onto the flat. With only another thirty feet to a safe spot to land the fish, the line went slack. The leader had finally failed, not with a snap, but with a muted parting. It took both me and the fish by surprise. I stared at the leader in disbelief as the permit continued to swim in the direction I had been leading it. Then the fish felt its freedom, veered off, and slowly swam over the reef. The remnants of the frayed leader dangling from the rod tip and spikes of plastic protruding like cactus spines from the fly line wound tightly on the reel told the story.

The pain suddenly reminded me of my fall, and I realized the water around my legs was discolored. I looked down to see that most of my left leg and my right thigh were solid brush burn-scraped, raw, and bruised, but no blood. The blood was from a cut on my right kneecap in the distinct pattern of brain coral. I checked for urchin spines, but fortunately found none. Defeated, I walked back to shore, sat on the beach, and rested, as I let the gash in my knee dry closed. After a few minutes, I made my way back to my truck and home.

Permit like to come through the reef to access backreef rubble flats, often riding the energy of the remnant waves through the reef into the shallow water. I've even seen large fish swimming sideways to get through particularly shallow areas. This is important to know for two reasons. First, you can look for cuts in the reef that provide easier access to such large fish and focus your efforts on these portions of the flat. Second, when hooked, permit will probably hightail it right back through the reef into deeper water, and you should be prepared for this. Both points can influence your fly-fishing strategy.

Once on the flat, permit will cruise the flat, often with their dorsal fins above the water, occasionally stopping to feed, digging their noses into the bottom and flipping their large, forked tails into the air. Prey items for permit in these areas include small clams and snails, sea urchins, crabs, and shrimp. After feeding along a stretch of flat, the fish usually head back through the reef to deeper water. In my experience, for any particular flat, permit feed in the same general pattern. They cross the reef in specific areas, travel along the flat in the same direction, and feed more actively on some sections of the flat than others, often at the same time in the tidal cycle. More intriguing, an individual permit's feeding pattern often persists on the flat for a few days, so as long as you don't spook a fish while trying to catch it, you can return the next day and have a decent shot at finding the fish again under the same conditions.

Once you've spotted a permit, the challenge is to present the fly close enough that the fish will see it, but not so close that you spook the fish. When feeding on the bottom, a permit's circle of vision is limited; it seems to focus on a rather small section of bottom just in front of, or directly below, its swimming path, so getting the fly close is paramount. It's like casting to teacup moving across the bottom. One option is to cast your fly directly in front of a slowly cruising fish. This is tough because a fly that splats down on the water will often spook the permit.

A second option is to anticipate the path of a cruising fish and cast the fly along this path, well ahead of the fish. As the fish approaches the fly, give it a small twitch. Though this approach works well over deeper seagrass, it can be tough to impossible on shallow rubble flats. Either the small waves rolling across the flat will move your fly out of the fish's path, or the fly will settle to the bottom and sink into one of the crevices among the rubble and never be seen by the fish. There is nothing quite as maddening as having to wait for a permit to pass by before wading over to unsnag a fly wedged in the rubble.

The third, and best, option is to cast directly in front or to the side of a feeding, tailing fish. Let the fly drop to the bottom. If the permit doesn't react, give the fly a slight twitch, and again let it rest. Most of the prey you'll be imitating with the flies you cast to permit won't move much once they think they've been spotted. Instead, they try to hide in the bottom. Too much movement to a fly will often send a permit in the other direction.

For each of these options, small waves rolling across the flat or wave-induced currents can make fly presentation difficult. But at times when the sea is calm and the water surface is like a mirror, the permit are very wary and easily spooked. It's a challenging situation under all conditions, which is part of what makes fishing for permit on backreef flats so much fun.

If you are lucky enough to hook a permit on a backreef flat, you will be faced with the challenge of keeping your leader in one piece as the fish heads to deeper water-directly through the coral reef. Of the numerous permit I've hooked on the fly on these flats, I've lost all to leaders that were cut on corals.

So you have two options. One strategy, albeit risky, is to clamp down on the drag and hope your line and rod hold as you prevent the fish from running through the reef. A second strategy is to give the fish plenty of line to run through the reef to deeper water, and let it tire itself out. Once the fish has tired, it will come to the surface, and you can work it back over the reef onto the flat. This is the stage of the fight where I have lost many fish, due to either bad luck or impatience on my part. So take your time, even though all of your senses tell you to hurry.

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