Permit fishing report, condition update

With no end of great weather in sight and water temperatures in the mid 70’s (f), I headed to the Marquesas todayt with John Ain and Captain Mike Morgan. We began fishing to a fair number of floating permit, suspended in the glare with only the tips of their fins showing. For some reason I am reminded of a bunch of Doritos floating in mercurial Jell-o. Maybe I need to eat something, but that’s what it reminds me of. If you have ever fished for permit in this attitude you are probably aware of how difficult they can be; we didn’t last very long until we decided to find some fish with a better attitude.
On the other side of the Marquesas, we had a few decent shots at permit and hooked two bonefish. Only one was brought to the boat. Later, along the same line, we saw what appeared to be a large tailing fish. Quite honestly it looked to big to be a permit, but as we got closer it became obvious it was, to put it simply, a very large permit and tailing hard. John threw a fly about 3 feet in front of it, and the fish tailed up on it.
It did not eat. I would love to tell the rest of this story if it ended with a capture, but the best part was seeing, casting to, and getting a reaction from such a large fish. That’s permit fishing, and trust me it burns me that we didn’t hook it, but I got the sense that what we did have would do.
Later we had a number of shots at fish that, as is typical for permit, did everything but eat the fly. John also hooked and landed a nice bonefish.
So that’s the report from the lower Keys–plenty of permit and bonefish, and we even saw a few tarpon. Tonight may bring some good night fishing, and I’ll have more tomorrow.
Best,

NCL/TAC