Permit on fly is the hardest single shot in saltwater fly fishing, in my experience. Yesterday I sat down with Capt Brandon Cyr — fourth-generation conch and Key West flats guide — for the third installment of my permit series. Brandon walked me through the three-by-three lead rule, the long smooth strip in the mid water column, the tail-down-rise-up read of the eat, and the long-slow-strip hook set on permit's soft rubber lips. The episode is the map. This is the cheat sheet I wrote up the morning after.
I've been guiding the Florida Keys for over twenty years and started my own guide career fly-fishing exclusively for permit. Permit themselves are not the hard part — they eat live crabs readily. The hard part is fly fishing for them, and Brandon's analogy nailed it. It would be like eating a ribeye every day, then having somebody put a piece of tofu in front of you and try to convince you it was a ribeye. No fly perfectly imitates a live crab. Presentation has to do the work the imitation can't.
The single most repeatable piece of technique Brandon gave me was the three-by-three rule. Lead the fish three feet in front and three feet past. Drop the fly directly on a permit's head and you have no maneuverability — the first strip pulls the fly out of his path. The three-feet-past part gives the stripping a job. As the fish slides down the flat, the fly crosses his path. For him to not eat it, he has to move left or right to avoid it.
The default stripping pattern is long, smooth strips that keep the fly in the mid water column — where blue crabs hover when escaping a predator. Real crabs don't bolt straight to the bottom; they shoot down only when the predator gets close.
Once the permit notices the fly and starts over, Brandon chooses between three moves:
The fish that calmly keeps swimming past is also information. The three-by-three is a default, not a law.
Brandon broke the approach into three scenarios:
The rule that ties all three together — don't rush. 90 percent of the permit Brandon catches are fish he can see the entire time through the cast.
The one place I jumped in with something I'd learned the hard way — stop the boat. Not "almost stopped." Stopped, where the angler almost takes a step off the bow. A drifting hull steals half the stripping power — the angler is just stripping up slack the boat is creating.
About 50 percent of the permit Brandon's clients catch, the customer doesn't feel the eat. Permit don't eat the way tarpon eat. They tail down, do a little wiggle, then start rising back up — the angler waiting for a thump never feels anything.
Brandon's coaching: the moment he sees the rise, he tells the client to do a long, smooth strip, nice and slow. Sometimes the fish missed the fly in the grass — the slow strip makes the fly look like a crab trying to get away, the fish chases hard and inhales it. The pattern: tails down, rises up, long slow strip — either he ate it and you come tight, or the escaping-crab motion makes him chase on the second try. Clients tell Brandon "I don't feel anything." His answer is always the same: keep doing big strips. They feel the bump on the half-strip, do another big strip, and they're tight.
Brandon's instruction here was clear. Do not trout-set with permit — lifting the rod tip yanks the fly away. Do not tarpon-set either. Permit have soft mouths, and you're fishing 12-pound test or lighter. A hard strip-set will pop them off.
What Brandon coaches instead: it's basically a slow strip. Feel the pressure, do a half strip, and as soon as it comes tight, raise the rod tip a little. Once it gets to the drag on the reel, the drag buries the hook deeper. Permit have what Brandon called beautiful soft rubber lips — he's had clients let go of the line to clear a tangle and the fish stays buttoned.
One related call: clear fly lines work great for tarpon, but Brandon doesn't recommend them for permit. If the guide can see the fly line, he can coach the angler in real time — that fly's close to the fish, or it's out of play, pick it up. A clear line removes that landmark. Brandon prefers grass-colored, light green, or light blue.
Brandon fishes for permit year-round. His honest answer on best time of year is that there isn't a single best. For consistency, June through the first cold front in October or November — summer fish run eight to 15 pounds. For bigger, hungrier fish, winter warm-ups between cold fronts. For pure volume, April pre-spawn aggregations. The hard rule Brandon kept coming back to: water temperature, not month. The magic window is 73 to 80 degrees. Below 70 is tough. Above 80, the flats lose oxygen and the fish go deeper.
On picking a guide, Brandon's framework is short. Pick someone you can communicate with calmly. The typical Florida Keys screamer multiplies the nerves of an angler whose target is already on a pedestal. His Garmin tracks his heart rate — resting he sits at 60 to 65, every permit sighting jumps him to almost 120, and his voice coaching the client never changes. Book through local fly shops — in Key West, Brandon names the Angling Company and the Saltwater Angler. Check Instagram — if somebody's catching permit, they're posting pictures every day.
Brandon talks about permit the way a chess player talks about a position — reading three moves ahead while still describing the current move. The three-by-three rule, the long slow strip on the eat, the long way around to get a downwind shot — those aren't tricks. They're a coherent system built on watching thousands of permit react to thousands of presentations.
The part I'd tell a fly angler reading this: practice the three-by-three with a casting target in your yard before you ever see a fish. Brandon's bow decisions happen in two seconds — the angler making them for the first time on a real fish is way behind. Practice the front-end mechanics, then let Brandon coach the back end.
What's worked for Brandon Cyr is to lead the fish three feet in front and three feet past with a tan crab or shrimp fly, strip in long smooth strokes to keep the fly in the mid water column, and watch the fish read your presentation. When a permit tails down then starts to rise up, do a long slow strip — never trout-set or tarpon-set. About half of permit eats aren't felt. The visual cue (tail down, rise up, then come tight) is the actual hook-set trigger.
Brandon Cyr's three-by-three rule is to cast three feet in front of the permit and three feet past him. Dropping the fly on his head means your first strip pulls the fly out of his path. The three-foot lead creates a path the fly crosses as the fish moves forward, forcing him to actively avoid it if he doesn't want to eat.
Brandon fishes a 9- or 10-weight Hardy Zephyrus, super-fast action. He drops to an 8-weight only on dead-calm days. For line, his preference is a heavy tarpon-taper because it turns over a longer leader in fewer false casts. Leaders run 12 to 18 feet depending on angler skill and wind.
Permit are not actually hard to catch — they eat live crabs readily. They're hard to catch on fly because no fly perfectly imitates a live crab. Brandon Cyr's analogy: it's like trying to convince somebody who eats ribeye every day that a piece of tofu is the same thing. Presentation has to do the work the imitation can't.
Never trout-set, never tarpon-set. Permit have soft mouths and you're fishing 12-pound test or lighter. When the fish tails down and rises up, do a long slow strip. As you feel pressure coming tight, raise the rod tip slightly. Once on the reel, the drag itself sets the hook deeper.
For consistency, June through the first cold front in October or November (fish run 8 to 15 pounds). For bigger fish, winter warm-ups between cold fronts. For volume, April pre-spawn aggregations. Brandon Cyr's real answer is water temperature, not month. The magic window is 73 to 80 degrees.
Brandon Cyr's minimum is 12 feet. Up to 18 feet for skilled anglers in calm conditions. In 25-knot wind he stays at 12. The long leader pairs with a heavy tarpon-taper line, which turns over the long leader in fewer false casts.
Brandon uses merkins, the strong-arm crab pattern Nathaniel Linville and Dave Skok originated (a merkin with a single claw off the back), and tan shrimp flies — all on the lighter side. If the fly is snagging grass in the first two or three strips, it's too heavy.
Brandon's framework: pick someone you can communicate with calmly. Book through a local fly shop (in Key West, the Angling Company on Simonton Street or the Saltwater Angler on Front Street) because shops match you to the right guide for repeat business. Check Instagram — if a guide is catching permit, they're posting pictures every day.
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