Key West Permit Tournament article by Ben Iannotta
The psychology of permit fishing
Capt. Kris Suplee of Marathon is unwinding behind a table at Hurricane Hole Marina. He looks wind-burned and sunburned like the other captains, and yet, there is a certain glow. The look tells me there is no need to rush over to the scoreboard to check the results of the second-annual March Merkin Permit Tournament that concluded Friday.
“I always wanted to see what we’d be able to do with good weather,” Suplee says. He’s referring to his years of guiding Warren Hinrichs, an investment portfolio manager from Jacksonville with an uncanny knack for fooling permit.
In a sport where catching even one permit on fly is considered an achievement, Hinrichs has just caught and released six of the beautifully awkward animals in three days of fly fishing with Suplee. They are the easy winners of the 24-team competition.
Unlike bonefish, whose green torpedo bodies look like they sprang from a marine architect’s CAD program, permit have broad bodies with pointy black fins that are less than optimized for disguise. This big reef fish can’t help coming into the shallows to root for crustaceans, usually crabs. They’re more nervous and wary than bonefish, and harder to fool with a fly.
A stiff breeze, slight chop and bright sunshine are the optimal weather conditions for permit fishing. The chop makes it harder for the permit to see or feel an approaching boat; and for the angler the sunlight creates a convenient contrast between their black tails and the grassy background.
“It was a 7 out of 10,” Suplee says of the tournament weather.
That doesn’t mean it was easy, which is fine by Hinrichs. Permit fishing is exhilarating, he says, precisely because it’s hard.
“The permit game is a psychological game. You experience highs and lows very fast,” he says.
Missed casts; hooks that don’t stick; the wandering mind. They happen to Hinrichs too, believe it or not, or maybe thank goodness. The difference might be that he keeps the past out of the present better than most. He credits Suplee with more than finding the fish: “He did a really good job of keeping me focused.”
As for the choice of flies, most anglers, including Hinrichs, target permit with homespun versions of the Merkin fly. With these bits of fibers, feather and rubber strings are trimmed to resemble a crab darting for cover. Some anglers break out secret patterns in especially hard times, but most will rely on the Merkin.
Hinrichs and Suplee are on a roll that probably has nothing to do with the choice of fly. They won last July’s Del Brown Invitational Permit tournament too. It would be unwise to imply they’ve somehow solved the permit riddle, however. Every permit angler knows there will be dry spells, and in fact seated just a few feet away from Suplee is a living, breathing example.
He is Jon Ain, a part-time resident of Sugarloaf Key and a highly-successful permit angler. Ain helped create this tournament when the organizers of the annual Del Brown competition shifted that event to July. Conventional wisdom says March is a good month for permit fishing because the fish are feasting up before spawning offshore in April and early May. Ain was skunked over the three-day event after winning last year’s inaugural competition.
There’s no denying that Suplee and Hinrichs had the most spectacular fishing, but others at the dock are glowing too.
Loren Rea of Sugarloaf Key caught her third permit on fly while fishing with Capt. Edward Michaels of Yankee Town. Rea will go down as the first woman to catch a permit in the event. Her husband, Capt. Justin Rea, guided Brian Byerly to a permit.
In a role reversal, Capt. Peter Heydon of Key West stood on the bow while his long-time friend Bill Heindl of Richmond, Va., poled the boat. Heydon caught his second permit on fly, a 30.5-inch fish that weighed 24 pounds on the handheld “Boga Grip.”
Heydon and Heindl were edged out for the largest fish by David Dalu, an emergency room doctor from Charleston, S.C., who fished with Capt. Scott Collins of Marathon. Their fish also measured 30.5 inches, but they caught it earlier to earn the honors.
Heindl, who is 66, is okay with that: “Being the oldest guide, I don’t care,” he says.
Call it the winning permititude.
Ben Iannotta is a freelance journalist and flats fishing guide. He can be reached at biannotta@aol.com.
For complete results please visit www.marchmerkin.com
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