Though many years past, my first permit encounter still swims strongly in the solution of my memory. by Garrett VeneKlasen

I had traveled to Boca Paila Lodge on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula with the specific intention of catching a permit. After two previous flats fishing trips elsewhere in the Caribbean, I had yet to even see one of these fish. By this time I was skeptical that the damn things even existed. Sure I'd seen all the pictures of gloating anglers proudly posing with one of those oval-shaped fish with the profile of a bug-eyed cartoon character, but I hadn't personally seen so much as a glimpse of these elusive creatures.

Day one of my trip found me paired up with an extremely exuberant guide named Victor Dzul. Seņor Dzul was said to be Mexico's finest permit "specialist"and, at least locally, was quite renown. Boca Paila's owner, Polly Gonzales, told me flat out that if Victor couldn't get me into permit, no one could.

At 7:30 AM sharp, Victor stood patiently waiting at the lodge's boat dock alongside his flats skiff appropriately-named palometa (Spanish for permit). After a formal greeting, Victor stoically informed me that he had been instructed to assist me in finding and catching a permit. To this duty, Victor vowed to devote his complete focus. With this last proclamation, he revved up the skiff's outboard and we headed out into the bay of Boca Paila.

We did not go far from the dock. Victor pointed the boat toward the nearest spit of sand, then gently ran the boat aground without the slightest bit of warning or further commentary. He gestured the "wait one minute" finger and hastily waded toward shore. All the while I was thinking that poor Victor had come down with a dose of the turistas. Instead of heading into the mangroves though, Seņor Dzul went down on all fours and started madly digging a whole in the sand. Surely he wasn't planning to ceremoniously relieve himself in plain view of his client!

In an instant the digging stopped, and Victor pulled from the hole a small scampering creature. Again without a word, he returned back to the boat beaming like a proud father. "La Palometa," he began in broken English, "is like a spoiled child. Only after careful inspection and fussing will they eat one or two types of their favorite foods." He held up a squirming, beige-colored sand crab about the size of a half dollar. "This little cangreja is like sugar cane to the bratty child!"

Victor climbed back into the boat with his prize crab and promptly skewered the wiggling creature on a stout-looking 1/0 live bait hook attached to a light-weight spinning outfit. ""I'm going to show you something very importante now," he continued before starting up the outboard again. We motored perhaps another five minutes to a small, isolated mangrove island surrounded by fairly deep water. Victor killed the engine and poled us up to the island's sandy point. He then looked at his watch.

"Permit are often quite predictable" Dzul began. "In the next ten minutes, you're going to see two permit come right past this island, swimming from east to west." This was getting a bit too hokey as far as I was concerned. We waited ten minutes, then fifteen, then twenty five. I was getting a bit tense. "Look Victor," I began in an annoyed tone, "I didn't come all this way to sit and wait for the fish to come swimming my way." No sooner had the words left my mouth, when Victor's hand shot up, pointing like a bird dog in an easterly direction. There before us, came two medium-sized permit just as he said they would.

Dzul flipped that crab out in front of those two fish with an uncanny precision, allowing proper distance to keep from spooking the permit. Before the crab could settle to the bottom, the lead fish spotted the offering and rushed forward to intercept it. Mere inches from the bait, the permit put on the brakes and held motionless in front of the fly.

"Look at that," Victor yelled, "just like my little daughter at breakfast time!" The permit carefully inspected the crab for a full minute, edging closer and closer to the bait with each passing second. Without warning, the fish tipped up and inhaled the crab. Victor set the hook and the permit bolted off in a great swirl of marl. Several spectacular runs later, a healthy 10-pound permit lay gasping in Victor's hands.

Victor explained that he wanted me to see how the fish react before I actually cast to them for the first time. "The mistake most beginners make, is to fish for permit like a bonefish or a tarpon. Permit are something else altogether." He went on to say that with a fly, it can be very difficult because its impossible to impart the necessary action and smell which provoke the actual strike.

Seņor Dzul was a simple man of noble Mayan descent who came from countless generations of fishermen intimately familiar with the nuances of the surrounding flats. His method of teaching, though somewhat rudimentary, was extremely useful in helping me understand the permit's behavior. It was my turn now to try for a permit. As usual, Victor had a specific location in mind and we motored for perhaps fifteen minutes before stopping again in a small flat quite similar to the spot where Victor caught his fish.

After carefully inspecting all my beautifully-tied crab patterns, Victor pronounced them unworthy. He shamelessly informed me that whoever tied my flies did not understand permit or crabs and was perhaps a trout or salmon angler at heart (he was exactly right). From his small rusted tackle box, Victor produced a ratty looking Rag-type crab pattern and tied it onto my line. He noted that the fly's action and profile in the water was more important than how it looked in a catalogue. Victor also wanted to 'bless' my fly by dunking it into a small jar filled with scent impregnated 7quot;crab juice." I humbly declined the offer, vowing to use the stuff only as a last-minute act of desperation.

Victor poled us along the middle of the flat, keeping special watch on the deeper adjoining stretch of water. We hadn't gone more than a hundred yards when the first fish was sighted. It was another medium-sized lone permit cruising warily along the flat's edge. Victor warned me before hand, that this fish was not in the feeding mood and to be prepared for frustration.

As instructed, I carefully placed the fly out in front of the fish when we drifted into casting range. The fly had plenty of time to settle to the bottom before the fish reached the crab's location. When the fish was perhaps five feet from the fly, Victor instructed me to quickly crawl it along the bottom and then stop my retrieve when the fish honed in. No sooner had I began to strip when the fish spotted the fly and approached within inches in a single rush. Victor then instructed me to let the fly be. He called this tense moment "el momento de la verdad." The permit hovered ever closer, but instead of taking the fly, the fish simply gave the artificial a nudge and went on its way. Victor instructed me to try another presentation, but I lined the permit on the second cast and that was the end of the game.

el momento de la verdad

For the next three days Victor and I chased permit from Boca Paila all the way to Ascension Bay. The wind had calmed considerably and the fish became quite spooky. Victor explained that the best permit fishing is often during windy weather, as the fish tend to become much less wary in choppy water.

By day four I was getting desperate. We fished all morning without sighting a single permit. Victor said that for some strange reason the permit were not frequenting their normal haunts. That afternoon, after much searching, we finally came upon a single fish which looked absolutely enormous. Victor poled us into perfect position while the giant permit busied itself with some morsel lodged in the sand. The tailing fish excited Victor immensely. Permit, he said, tend to be less wary and more apt to strike when distracted by feeding.

 In this situation Victor instructed me to place the fly as close to the fish's head as possible. How close is close I wondered? Victor responded that if the fly lands too close, the permit will spook. Too far and it won't see the fly at all. About a foot away was best. The added pressure wasn't exactly what I needed, but with a little luck, I managed to put the fly right on the money.

The permit responded immediately, tipping back down and completely deserting whatever it was trying to excavate from the muddy bottom. Again the fish honed in on the fly and el momento de verdad brought a cold sweat to the back of my neck.

After what seemed eternity, the fish lost interest in the fly an began to swim off, but as soon as I started to strip in line in preparation for another cast, the permit was back on my fraudulent crab. This game continued for at least five minutes until I ultimately ran out of line. The great fish followed the fly literally to my rod tip before it realized what was going on. With an obvious look of disgust, the fish turned slowly and swam off the flat into deep water.

Dzul was laughing uncontrollably by this point. Between gasps he asked if I'd like to give it a go with his spinning rod and a live crab. About that time a stick of dynamite would have done nicely. Being somewhat superstitious, Victor was starting to believe that I had contracted some sort of permit curse, and therefore recommended that perhaps we go catch a few bonefish to appease my wounded pride. To this I heartily agreed.