As a flats guide in Placencia, Belize, once told me: “Guys can tell you roughly how many tarpon and bonefish they’ve caught on fly rod, but they remember exactly how many permit they’ve caught – where, when, every last detail.”
The permit has achieved this vaunted status because of its natural wariness when in shallow water. This silvery, oval-shaped cousin of the jack family with the black sickle tail spends most of its time in the offshore waters of the Gulf, Atlantic and Caribbean. It only ventures onto the flats to feed – mostly on crabs and shrimp – and only when tide, wind and water temperature are to its liking. While feeding, the permit is on high alert for any signs of a predator in its watery universe – kind of like a fugitive who sneaks down to town from the deep woods to sift through a garbage can in the dark. If anything looks hinky to the permit, it is gone in – literally – a flash.
