Report from the flats

Today I fished for about 6 hours with Capt. Ray Vasquez. We had great visibility, and the tides looked good. We had a new fly that John O’Hearn had given me that I was eager to try and it was blowing 15–all perfect indicators of good permit fishing.
We started west of Key West and found nothing at our first stop. After a half hour at spot #2, we found a pair of fish that were far from willing; they spooked before the fly got halfway through the water column. After that we found a single cruiser at our third stop. My cast was, admittedly, a little far in front of him and by the time he raced over to check it out my fly had buried itself in the grass. A few more shots at this fish before he spooked didn’t work out, and we poled through the rest of the flat without a single tail to occupy our minds.
Next we left for a spot closer to home, and again found nothing. Our final shot came on our final flat, the final one before I had to leave to get back to work. We had given up and Ray had jumped off the platform when I spotted a large permit about 20 feet away. I cast to him and he kicked over, but spooked off the boat. We of course caved to the pressure to continue fishing, though after 15 minutes we had both had enough.
Tough, tough fishing. Thomas Rapone is in town (he’s totally a lawyer now!) and fished today also; I am comforted by the fact that he didn’t find but one permit today.
More to follow as always,

ncl/tac