Tom Rowland | Permit Fishing With Spinning Tackle - Setup, Baits & Techniques | Ep. 213

# EP 213 | Permit Fishing 101 - Spinning Tackle And Techniques | https://traffic.megaphone.fm/WPCM2206532088.mp3 # Words: 7538 | Deepgram Nova-2 [00:00:00] Speaker 0: If you want everything you need to take care of your boat, StarBright's got the solution. [00:00:04] Speaker 0: It's called boat care in a bucket. [00:00:06] Speaker 0: That's right. [00:00:07] Speaker 0: One three and a half gallon bucket packed with essentials, vinyl bright, deck cleaner, marine polish, a wash mitt, hull cleaner, and boat wash. [00:00:15] Speaker 0: That one kit will keep any boat clean and protected, but that's just the start. [00:00:20] Speaker 0: I also use StarBright's salt off, which is incredible for rinsing salt off after a day on the water. [00:00:25] Speaker 0: Their brushes and cleaning products work just as well on your RV and patio furniture and anything else that lives outside. [00:00:32] Speaker 0: It is a company that gives back. 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[00:01:17] Speaker 0: Call (727) 498-5551 or visit hhinsgroup.com and tell them Tom Roland sent you. [00:01:27] Speaker 0: Trusted enough to go with me to The Seychelles, my Danco pliers are a staple in my kit. [00:01:32] Speaker 0: Check out dancopliers.com and build yours today. [00:01:46] Speaker 0: Hey, everybody. [00:01:46] Speaker 0: Welcome to How To Tuesday. [00:01:48] Speaker 0: We're in a three part series on my favorite fish, the permit, and mostly how that applies to the Florida Keys, but a lot of this information could be applied anywhere. [00:01:57] Speaker 0: On the first episode, we had my friend Nick Labatey come and join us to talk about seasons, how he breaks up the year, how I think about the year, and the different, times of the year that you could come to the Florida Keys or really anywhere to fish for permit. [00:02:16] Speaker 0: We talk about tides, seasons, guides, boats, kind of a general overview on permit. [00:02:24] Speaker 0: And one of the things that we say there is there's really a couple different ways to catch them. [00:02:29] Speaker 0: Obviously, fly fishing is very popular for permit because they are very, very difficult to catch on fly. [00:02:36] Speaker 0: Not impossible by any stretch of the imagination, but very, very difficult and does require kind of, teamwork between the guide and the angler. [00:02:47] Speaker 0: So that kinda requires a special boat, for the most part, of a poling skiff and a guide that is really into pursuing permit. [00:02:58] Speaker 0: You get the angler, who's also into pursuing the permit, and the guide on the same page. [00:03:03] Speaker 0: And, you know, there a lot of fish can be caught. [00:03:07] Speaker 0: There is no question, I don't think that anyone would argue with me, to say that it's far more effective to catch a permit on a spinning rod, and there are a lot of reasons for that. [00:03:18] Speaker 0: One, you can cast much further. [00:03:20] Speaker 0: Two, you can use a bait, which is something that they eat all the time, a live crab or a live shrimp, or there are many other, imitations that, quite frankly, don't look as good as a lot of the flies, but you can throw these things three, four times as far as you can a fly rod. [00:03:40] Speaker 0: So it opens up a lot more shots and, you know, you can sometimes tip the jig with a shrimp, which definitely helps, but it doesn't make it a layup by any stretch of the imagination. [00:03:54] Speaker 0: There's nothing about permit fishing which it that is a layup. [00:03:57] Speaker 0: So today, we're gonna talk specifically about spin fishing for permit and kinda go deep on, the actual tackle that I like to use, techniques, and, and go go through all the baits and different, different ways that we like to fish for them. [00:04:20] Speaker 0: You can fish for permit with spinning tackle on the flats, on the nearshore patch reefs and coral heads and stuff like that, and you can also find them, on, wrecks and other kind of structure in water that's shallow enough to see the bottom. [00:04:39] Speaker 0: You can find them also on wrecks in deeper water, and you can find them in spawning behavior out off of the reef, in in kinda in the wide open. [00:04:50] Speaker 0: So the permit is one of the most widespread fish from deep water to shallow water, and everywhere in between, you can find them. [00:04:59] Speaker 0: They're very challenging, challenging fish to to catch because they they want what they want. [00:05:05] Speaker 0: They want a live offering. [00:05:08] Speaker 0: So you either need to animate your jig, to look like it's alive, or you need to actually be using a live shrimp or live crab, and the presentation is very, very important. [00:05:20] Speaker 0: So let's just talk about exactly what I like to to use. [00:05:27] Speaker 0: Now I wanna start with the rod. [00:05:28] Speaker 0: We're gonna talk about the rods and the reels first. [00:05:32] Speaker 0: The rod is very important, and I don't use the same rod all the time. [00:05:39] Speaker 0: Just like anything else, as you get more and more into it, you become more, nuanced in in in what you like and why. [00:05:47] Speaker 0: And I really have three or four different rods that I that I really like for permit, but thus, let's talk about the one battle axe that I could be confident and comfortable using all year long. [00:05:59] Speaker 0: And then if I wanna get, picky and I wanna try to to improve my presentation at certain times of the year, I might use something else. [00:06:09] Speaker 0: So this first rod is a seven foot medium or medium heavy, which would be for lines eight to 17 on the medium and lines 12 to 20 pound on the medium heavy. [00:06:24] Speaker 0: That is the battle axe, seven foot medium action rod made for saltwater. [00:06:31] Speaker 0: Now that one allows for good casting. [00:06:34] Speaker 0: It'll it it's heavy enough that I can fight any size permit very, very quickly to the boat. [00:06:42] Speaker 0: And, that one will allow for me to to fish for permit all year long. [00:06:48] Speaker 0: Now let's on the last episode, we talked about how the seasons kind of change. [00:06:55] Speaker 0: And if we started just, you know, at Christmas time or New Year's Day. [00:07:00] Speaker 0: New Year's Day is gonna be kinda wintertime fishing. [00:07:03] Speaker 0: We're gonna be getting, cold fronts coming through on the regular. [00:07:07] Speaker 0: You're gonna see, the wind. [00:07:09] Speaker 0: You're you're gonna have more wind. [00:07:11] Speaker 0: You're also gonna have, very clear skies, so that can be good for permit fishing. [00:07:15] Speaker 0: But the more wind you have, it's kind of if you haven't done this type of fishing much, it seems counterintuitive that the more fish the more wind you would have, the closer you can get to the permit and the the shorter the cast, whether it's with fly gear or spinning gear, the shorter that the cast has to be. [00:07:36] Speaker 0: K? [00:07:36] Speaker 0: Because and that is because with the wind and the wind action, the flats all of a sudden are a very loud place. [00:07:43] Speaker 0: And the the boats that we use are very technical. [00:07:48] Speaker 0: They they do not slap much, so the waves are not hitting the side of the hull and making an audible slap that that's in the design of these boats. [00:07:57] Speaker 0: So the boats are designed to be quiet. [00:07:59] Speaker 0: You can push through small waves. [00:08:01] Speaker 0: You know, you might have waves of six inches to a foot when it's blowing twenty, twenty knots out there, and the boat can just move through those waves without making, any kind of a a a slapping noise. [00:08:16] Speaker 0: Like, if you just took a John boat out there, you'd you'd hear the side of the boat just it would just be pat pat pat pat pat pat, and the fish actually hear that from quite a distance away, and they push away from you. [00:08:28] Speaker 0: In the technical polling skiffs that we use and the bay boats, they are very quiet, and we can get much, much closer to them either with a trolling motor or a push pull when it's blowing hard. [00:08:39] Speaker 0: And the harder it's blowing, the closer we can get. [00:08:42] Speaker 0: We can almost get on top of a permit when it's blowing really, really hard. [00:08:46] Speaker 0: So you have to you don't have to cast as far, and that's why the rod that I choose most of the time is a seven foot rod, medium heavy. [00:08:57] Speaker 0: If I think that I'm going to have to fight a permit away from the mangroves or away from a wreck or away from a coral head. [00:09:05] Speaker 0: I want a little extra backbone. [00:09:07] Speaker 0: But my number one, criteria for what rod I'm gonna use is, can I make the cast at the distance that I think that I'm going to need to go? [00:09:17] Speaker 0: So on a very windy day, I'm not gonna have to cast very far. [00:09:21] Speaker 0: On as it gets progressively calmer and calmer and calmer until it is an absolute slick windless day, that is gonna be when we have to cast the absolute furthest. [00:09:31] Speaker 0: That's when the permit can sense, feel, and hear every little noise that you make on the flat. [00:09:39] Speaker 0: So a calm day might seem like it would be a very good day to go permit fishing, but it can be very, very challenging. [00:09:46] Speaker 0: They can be aware of you at hundreds of yards away out out of range of any spinning rod. [00:09:54] Speaker 0: So it's not just like you pick up a spinning rod and you're you're gonna immediately catch them, for all the fly fishermen out there. [00:10:01] Speaker 0: It's not like that at all. [00:10:03] Speaker 0: You have to put the crab where it needs to be, and you have to do so at a distance that, you know, the further you're casting, the the the more inaccurate you're going to be. [00:10:16] Speaker 0: And, that's and same with a fly rod. [00:10:19] Speaker 0: If you're gonna cast a 100 feet, you're not gonna be as accurate as if you're casting at 50. [00:10:23] Speaker 0: So that's a problem. [00:10:24] Speaker 0: But I want if I'm going to have to cast my furthest distance, I'm gonna go with a little bit longer rod. [00:10:31] Speaker 0: I'm gonna bump it up to eight foot rod, and I'm gonna either go with a medium action or a medium heavy action depending on the size of the crab that I'm throwing and what I think is gonna happen when we hook up. [00:10:45] Speaker 0: So if we're around a wreck or a coral head or some mangroves, I'll again, even with the eight foot rod, I will bump up to the medium heavy so so I'll have a little more backbone that I can help to fight that fish away. [00:10:59] Speaker 0: But I'm gonna choose my rod based upon how far I need to cast. [00:11:04] Speaker 0: And if I can cast the distance very easily, I'd probably rather bump up to the medium heavy, which is the 12 to 20 pound rod, rather than go with the super light rod. [00:11:14] Speaker 0: I'm gonna go with a lighter rod because I'm gonna be able to throw further both with a seven foot medium and with an eight foot medium, then I am going to be able to throw with a, medium heavy in those same rod links. [00:11:29] Speaker 0: That's me personally, may not be you. [00:11:32] Speaker 0: So in all of this, you kinda have to figure out what you can throw further, what you're more comfortable with, and go with that. [00:11:39] Speaker 0: So the rods that I really like, are the Saint Croix rods. [00:11:45] Speaker 0: I think that Saint Croix rods are the best ones out there, and there are three models. [00:11:50] Speaker 0: There's probably more than three models, but I love these three models. [00:11:54] Speaker 0: There's the Mojo, which is the least expensive. [00:11:57] Speaker 0: They make this battle axe. [00:11:58] Speaker 0: It's a perfect rod for permanent fishing, a seven foot medium and medium heavy rod, and that's their kind of their entry level rod. [00:12:06] Speaker 0: The Legend Extreme has, much more expensive components on it. [00:12:10] Speaker 0: It's a white rod that you can see very easily if you go to Bass Pro or any other retailer where they're carrying, Saint Croix. [00:12:19] Speaker 0: It's their only white rod, so you can pick that out really easily. [00:12:23] Speaker 0: They also have a battle ax, a seven foot medium and a seven foot medium heavy. [00:12:28] Speaker 0: Now when I'm gonna bump up to the longer rod, I'm gonna be looking in the Avid series, which is kind of a, teal colored rod, and they have an eight foot medium and an eight foot medium heavy. [00:12:40] Speaker 0: So those are really the four rods that I really like. [00:12:44] Speaker 0: A seven foot medium, seven foot medium heavy, an eight foot medium, and an eight foot medium heavy. [00:12:50] Speaker 0: That's gonna cover everything that you're gonna need in permit fishing. [00:12:55] Speaker 0: Joe Gonzalez on our, how to Tuesday, he talked about kind of the same thing that in the summertime, he's gonna have to cast his bonefish much further than he will in the wintertime. [00:13:05] Speaker 0: So he also suggested bumping up to us to an eight foot rod. [00:13:09] Speaker 0: And, then as we go to line, we'll talk about how the line affects the the casting distance as well, and I'll change my line and on these different, on these different rods as the year goes on. [00:13:28] Speaker 0: So now let's talk about reels. [00:13:31] Speaker 0: Okay? [00:13:32] Speaker 0: The reels need to be good. [00:13:35] Speaker 0: You need to have a good quality spinning reel because the permit's no joke. [00:13:40] Speaker 0: It runs really fast. [00:13:41] Speaker 0: It's one of the hardest fighting fish in the ocean, and you're using ultralight gear for them. [00:13:47] Speaker 0: Now the the spinning reels have come a long way, and there are some really, really good ones out there on the market, and and they're they're perfectly capable of handling it. [00:13:59] Speaker 0: You want a good one, though, because the fish is gonna peel off a lot of line. [00:14:04] Speaker 0: You want a drag that can handle that, and you want a reel that's gonna stand up to the abuse. [00:14:08] Speaker 0: I look for a reel that is going to be able to hold between two hundred and three hundred and fifty yards of the line that I want to use. [00:14:18] Speaker 0: So I'm gonna use braided line all the time. [00:14:22] Speaker 0: 100% of the time, I'm using braided line. [00:14:25] Speaker 0: So I want to use, at the heaviest, I'm gonna use, 30. [00:14:32] Speaker 0: At the lightest, I'm gonna use eight. [00:14:35] Speaker 0: And I want to make sure that the reel that I choose is gonna have the capacity to land a permit. [00:14:43] Speaker 0: So if I'm gonna and it's funny. [00:14:44] Speaker 0: Like, if I'm using heavier line, I may not need quite the capacity that I might with the light line because I'm not gonna be able to put as much pressure on a fish with eight pound test, so I may have to let them run further. [00:14:57] Speaker 0: So the idea would be, you know, lighter line, smaller reel, but not not necessarily the case always. [00:15:06] Speaker 0: So I might have a 4,000 or a 5,000 reel loaded with eight pound braid for the summertime fishing to make sure that no matter how far that fish runs, I'm gonna have capacity, and I'm not gonna have to pull on them real hard. [00:15:17] Speaker 0: Where, you know, if you're fishing 30 pound line, you can definitely pull a lot harder on that, and you can keep that fish from running so far. [00:15:28] Speaker 0: So the reel that I'm looking for is usually a 30 or a 40 size. [00:15:31] Speaker 0: That can be a 3,000 or a 4,000 size also in other reel manufacturers. [00:15:36] Speaker 0: And, what I'm the ones that I have found that work the very best for me are the DIAA ones. [00:15:43] Speaker 0: The Salty's Salty's and the Ballistic are two that I really like. [00:15:49] Speaker 0: They're not that expensive. [00:15:50] Speaker 0: They handle everything that I throw at them, and they have exactly what I'm looking for. [00:15:55] Speaker 0: The 4,000 holds 320 yards of 30, and, it's, it's great. [00:16:02] Speaker 0: If you wanted to step up beyond that, you could go to a Saltiga or Sertate, which are, really premium, Daiwa reels. [00:16:11] Speaker 0: They're premium reels that, no permit is gonna wear those things out. [00:16:17] Speaker 0: So those are those are good, options for that. [00:16:21] Speaker 0: But whatever whatever manufacturer you choose, you want to look at the capacity first, and you want it to be with a reputable real manufacturer so that you know that the the drag is gonna hold up. [00:16:32] Speaker 0: And and, really, you're gonna be spending some money on this thing, so make sure that, you know, it's gonna be durable and, be able to handle handle kind of salt corrosion. [00:16:43] Speaker 0: That's one of the things that the Daiwa reels are the best at, in my opinion. [00:16:47] Speaker 0: Okay. [00:16:47] Speaker 0: So now let's talk about line. [00:16:50] Speaker 0: I said before that I'm a 100% braided line. [00:16:54] Speaker 0: I have no desire or, application for monofilament in my permit fishing anymore. [00:17:01] Speaker 0: I used to fish with permit I mean, I used to fish with monofilament all the time before braided line came out, and, there is not one thing about monofilament as far as permit fishing, in my opinion, that is superior to braided line. [00:17:19] Speaker 0: Braided line cast further. [00:17:21] Speaker 0: It and and that alone is worth it to me because the distance you're casting is paramount in your success in permit fishing. [00:17:31] Speaker 0: So just simply I mean, even on the early stages of the braided lines where, they could be a terrible mess when you cast, and you would get what people call wind knots. [00:17:44] Speaker 0: They're bad you know, they're just knots. [00:17:47] Speaker 0: It flies off the spool and creates a big knot. [00:17:51] Speaker 0: Even with those things happening, the distance that we could get with the braided line made it already much superior to anything that monofilament would have. [00:18:02] Speaker 0: I can throw 20 pound braid further than I can throw eight pound monofilament. [00:18:08] Speaker 0: So it's just a simple simple thing for me. [00:18:12] Speaker 0: Most people are probably using braided line, but if you're not, you there there is a world of difference in the performance that you can get out of braided line over monofilament. [00:18:22] Speaker 0: And as it applies to permit fishing, we've talked about it a number of times, but distance is paramount. [00:18:29] Speaker 0: If you can throw further, you have a better chance of catching the fish. [00:18:33] Speaker 0: If you can throw further with accuracy, you have a much better chance of catching fish. [00:18:37] Speaker 0: So that is what I I like, his braided line. [00:18:41] Speaker 0: My favorite braided line is the Daiwa j braid, and the line is gonna change just like the rods are throughout the course of the year. [00:18:51] Speaker 0: The battle axe is 20 or 30 pound. [00:18:53] Speaker 0: The battle axe is probably 20 pound. [00:18:55] Speaker 0: I feel like with 20 pound, I can cast a long way, maybe not to the absolute maximum distance, but I I can cast a long way. [00:19:04] Speaker 0: It has plenty of strength to be able to pull on a permit and plenty of abrasion resistance to be able to handle permit in all different types of situations, whether that's a wreck or a coral head or flats or deep offshore. [00:19:18] Speaker 0: So I'm gonna have 20 pound on my reels for the most part all year long. [00:19:24] Speaker 0: I could even bump up to 30. [00:19:26] Speaker 0: This new j braid, the 30 is very thin and very manageable, and I don't actually notice that much of a decrease between the 20 and the 30. [00:19:38] Speaker 0: So you're gonna pick up some abrasion resistance, and you might lose a tiny bit of casting distance. [00:19:45] Speaker 0: And if you're worried about making it sporty, you could use a 10 pound leader, and you're actually fishing with 10 pound, but you have a kinda like fly fishing. [00:19:54] Speaker 0: Like, and, you know, nobody complains about using a a a 60 pound fly line because you have a tippet on the end of that that's, you know, 12 pound or 10 pound or whatever. [00:20:06] Speaker 0: So you can make the pound test whatever you want, and the the line is used for casting. [00:20:12] Speaker 0: Or you could use a heavier leader and and not worry about breaking them off so much. [00:20:19] Speaker 0: In the in the summertime, I am going to have some reels loaded with eight, ten, and 15 pound and I'm going to be able to cast much, much further with those. [00:20:31] Speaker 0: When I pair eight pound with an eight foot rod and I have a crab on there that's, you know, heavy enough to throw, that's gonna be my maximum casting distance. [00:20:43] Speaker 0: Maybe a maybe a jig might cast a little further, but an eight foot rod with eight pound or 10 pound on it is gonna cast a long way. [00:20:52] Speaker 0: It'll be decreased a little bit with 20 and decreased a little bit with 30, and then that casting distance will be decreased as you move to a seven foot rod. [00:21:00] Speaker 0: But I tend to have more control over it, be more accurate with a seven foot rod than I am with an eight foot rod, So that's why I'm using the the different ones. [00:21:09] Speaker 0: But I'm gonna either use, you know, between eight and thirty pound, braided line, and that is the reason because it affects the casting distance and it also affects, where I'm able to to pull on these fish. [00:21:25] Speaker 0: So if I really need to pull on them, I can pull on them with heavy line. [00:21:28] Speaker 0: We're gonna go over some techniques where you you'll see that pulling on them is not always the answer. [00:21:35] Speaker 0: On the end of the braided line, I'm going to tie a fluorocarbon leader. [00:21:41] Speaker 0: I like fluorocarbon better than monofilament. [00:21:43] Speaker 0: I think that it has better abrasion resistance and it also sinks. [00:21:48] Speaker 0: And sinking fluorocarbon will help your crab get to the bottom or your jig or your shrimp or whatever it is that you're using, and it has less light refraction. [00:22:00] Speaker 0: So it doesn't shine as much in the water as monofilament. [00:22:03] Speaker 0: So, therefore, it is a little bit more invisible. [00:22:06] Speaker 0: I get more bites on fluorocarbon, and I also feel, because of the abrasion resistance, I can go down a little bit in the pound test and still be able to catch the fish that I'm looking for. [00:22:18] Speaker 0: So I'll be using a leader anywhere between fifteen and thirty pound depending on where I'm fishing, and, I will tie that on to the end of the of the braided line with several different knots. [00:22:33] Speaker 0: I like I like the j knot probably the best. [00:22:38] Speaker 0: A double uni is fantastic. [00:22:40] Speaker 0: If I'm feeling really super fancy, I will I will go with, you know, the Delft knot or the Sabille knot or the, what what else is that knot called? [00:22:50] Speaker 0: It's a it's a woven knot that there's really not a knot there. [00:22:54] Speaker 0: You can go to our website, and see all of these knots and how to tie them. [00:23:02] Speaker 0: And and I might go super fancy when I'm using the lighter lines, and I might tie a bimini first and then a double uni or a bimini and then a j knot. [00:23:12] Speaker 0: And all of these knots are available. [00:23:15] Speaker 0: If you are not familiar with all of the knots, you can go to saltwaterexperience.com. [00:23:19] Speaker 0: You can look up knots and there there are tons of them up there. [00:23:23] Speaker 0: I did a series of about 40 or 50 different knots that go step by step through how to tie all these knots. [00:23:30] Speaker 0: So you can find all that at saltwaterexperience.com, or you can look it up on our YouTube channel and go through all of the the different knots. [00:23:38] Speaker 0: But it's not, you know, super fancy. [00:23:40] Speaker 0: Just just call it a call it a double uni, from the fluorocarbon to the braided line. [00:23:46] Speaker 0: And then I'm going to usually tie, which is somewhat surprising to some people, but I like a clinch knot from the leader to the hook. [00:23:58] Speaker 0: And their reason for that is I don't like a loop knot with a circle hook. [00:24:06] Speaker 0: I like that that leader to be tight to the circle hook. [00:24:11] Speaker 0: I feel like, you know, if you've got the loop knot in there, while in some ways, a loop knot is a great advantage and you can tie a very, very strong loop knot, but I have seen fish not get hooked when when loop knot is there. [00:24:26] Speaker 0: I don't know why, but in my mind, it just seems like if they're if the leader and the hook are one, that that hook seems to find the corner of the fish's mouth better than when it is on a loop and it's allowed to swing around. [00:24:43] Speaker 0: I haven't had as good a luck. [00:24:44] Speaker 0: That's just me personally. [00:24:46] Speaker 0: If it works for you, great. [00:24:48] Speaker 0: Use it. [00:24:48] Speaker 0: Don't change. [00:24:50] Speaker 0: Use what's working. [00:24:51] Speaker 0: Now let's go over the hook because I have very strong opinions about the hook. [00:24:57] Speaker 0: I fished for permit for a long time and was very frustrated using circle hooks. [00:25:04] Speaker 0: And this is really before, I'm I'm sorry, using j hooks. [00:25:10] Speaker 0: And this is really before, chemically sharpened, very nice circle hooks were, easily found. [00:25:20] Speaker 0: Couldn't just go into any any bait shop and find, you know, chemically sharpened circle hooks like you can today. [00:25:28] Speaker 0: So we just didn't have them as much of an option, so we tended to use j hooks of all different sizes and shapes and and everything, but they were j hooks. [00:25:39] Speaker 0: And you would throw over to a permit or let's just say my clients would throw over to a permit. [00:25:43] Speaker 0: You could see the rod tip move as if the fish had just eaten it. [00:25:48] Speaker 0: They would try to set the hook, and we would often come back with just the shell. [00:25:52] Speaker 0: Often. [00:25:54] Speaker 0: I started playing around with circle hooks as they became more available, and I started to really kinda hone in, like, what size I wanted and what size was the most effective and how to hook the crabs with a circle hook and how to set the hook with, you know, the rod and how to instruct my anglers how to do that. [00:26:16] Speaker 0: And it wasn't very long at all that the hookup percentage of permit went from about 40% to almost a 100%. [00:26:30] Speaker 0: We just almost didn't miss any anymore. [00:26:34] Speaker 0: It was astounding, and it made such an incredible difference in my success as a permit guide with spinning tackle that very few things have made that kind of impact on my fishing to where you were marginal before you change one little piece of your gear, and it makes an incredible difference. [00:26:59] Speaker 0: A permit is a perfect fish to use a circle hook. [00:27:02] Speaker 0: The way that they eat the crab, the way that you set the hook, it all works very, very well to have the hook end up in the corner of the permit's mouth. [00:27:14] Speaker 0: It's good for the fish. [00:27:15] Speaker 0: It's good for the angler. [00:27:17] Speaker 0: It's the way to go. [00:27:19] Speaker 0: So I'll tell you the hook that I like the most. [00:27:22] Speaker 0: I like this weird shaped offshore angler, four ought, occasionally a five ought depending on the size of the crab, and it is a it is a circle hook. [00:27:32] Speaker 0: It's a little bit offset, and it has a short shank on it. [00:27:36] Speaker 0: And I've I've I've tried pretty much every circle hook on the market. [00:27:42] Speaker 0: I have much better success with any circle hook than I had with the very best j hook. [00:27:48] Speaker 0: So I think this worldwide sportsman hook is the best for my personal fishing. [00:27:55] Speaker 0: You can find what you like for yours, but I strongly encourage you that if you're interested in catching permit, you know, maybe somebody else has different experience, but the circle hook for me has been the biggest game changer. [00:28:07] Speaker 0: And, I'd I would not feel comfortable throwing a j hook at a permit. [00:28:13] Speaker 0: I just wouldn't wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. [00:28:16] Speaker 0: I'll do it to a bonefish. [00:28:18] Speaker 0: Don't feel good about throwing a j hook to a permit. [00:28:21] Speaker 0: And maybe that's just me and my the way that I think about things, but that's if you're asking my advice, I'm saying throw a circle. [00:28:29] Speaker 0: K. [00:28:30] Speaker 0: So then let's talk about baits because there there are lots of different ways that you can catch them, and you can certainly catch Permit on completely artificial on spinning tackle. [00:28:40] Speaker 0: It's gonna be slightly, more productive, let's say, than than flat tackle simply because you can cast so much further and you might open yourself up to a lot of shots that you wouldn't have gotten with fly. [00:28:54] Speaker 0: But, for the most part, it could be that fly fishing is actually more effective than than spin fishing with artificials. [00:29:02] Speaker 0: Now, there are some crab imitations out there that are just look so good. [00:29:07] Speaker 0: They look like a live crab. [00:29:09] Speaker 0: They are beautiful, but they don't act like a live crab. [00:29:12] Speaker 0: In fact, they act like a dead crab. [00:29:14] Speaker 0: And if you have done a lot of permit fishing with crabs, you have probably thrown a dead crab to a permit. [00:29:22] Speaker 0: And a permit comes over and looks at a dead crab, kinda like they go over and look at a fly. [00:29:27] Speaker 0: There's mild, moderate interest, and they end up not eating it often. [00:29:33] Speaker 0: Sometimes they will, but they don't want to, as opposed to a live crab where the thing's kicking and screaming and making noise as it's going down and the permit comes over and it pulverizes it. [00:29:45] Speaker 0: K? [00:29:45] Speaker 0: Big difference. [00:29:47] Speaker 0: I find the same thing with a lot of these, imitation crabs that they look really good, but they don't act like a live crab, and so therefore, the permit aren't quite as into them. [00:30:01] Speaker 0: So I would say that's the least, in my opinion, that's the least effective bait. [00:30:06] Speaker 0: The second least effective bait would be, a jig, like a bonefish jig, or maybe a little bit larger. [00:30:14] Speaker 0: Now, lots of permit are caught on jigs. [00:30:16] Speaker 0: Lots of them. [00:30:17] Speaker 0: And there are anglers out there that are very, very good with a spinning rod and very good with a jig, and that's just their bag and they catch a lot of permit with jigs. [00:30:27] Speaker 0: It would help if you knew the splashless cast and you could cast in a way that you are gonna minimize the impact of that jig. [00:30:34] Speaker 0: You're gonna be able to throw it very close to them like fly fishermen do, and it's gonna shoot to the bottom. [00:30:40] Speaker 0: And, a permit will eat it. [00:30:43] Speaker 0: They they eat it. [00:30:44] Speaker 0: I mean, it's not terribly uncommon to catch them on jigs. [00:30:47] Speaker 0: People do it all the time. [00:30:49] Speaker 0: But of the of the baits that I'm gonna go over, just a bear jig is probably the second, least effective. [00:30:59] Speaker 0: You can enhance that by tipping that jig with shrimp. [00:31:03] Speaker 0: That'll make it a little bit more effective. [00:31:05] Speaker 0: Same techniques apply, and you'll catch a few more if it's if it's tipped with shrimp. [00:31:12] Speaker 0: The second most effective bait is a live shrimp, and that can be on a jig head, that can be on a circle hook, that can be rigged in many different ways. [00:31:23] Speaker 0: Split shots and and other ways that that a live shrimp can be rigged on a hook can be effective for permit. [00:31:31] Speaker 0: It can also get an errant snapper. [00:31:34] Speaker 0: As you're waiting for the permit to swim up, you may catch a snapper that happens to be sitting right where you, cast. [00:31:42] Speaker 0: So that's frustrating when that happens. [00:31:45] Speaker 0: The number one bait of all time, and I think without much argument, is a live blue crab. [00:31:53] Speaker 0: We're very fortunate in the Florida Keys that most of the bait shops carry live crabs, and and they carry them in the size that is appropriate for permit fishing. [00:32:03] Speaker 0: I like one to two inches across the carapace, and, you want your crabs to be very healthy. [00:32:09] Speaker 0: You wanna do everything that you can to keep these crabs healthy so that I mean, when you hook them on and you put them in the water, they should be the every leg should be kicking. [00:32:19] Speaker 0: They should make audible clicking sounds. [00:32:23] Speaker 0: They should swim to the bottom almost like a fish. [00:32:27] Speaker 0: And if you have that bait, man, what a difference that makes. [00:32:31] Speaker 0: And you can you can do yourself a big favor by, you know, obviously keeping them in the live well, obviously not casting them very very many times. [00:32:41] Speaker 0: Like, a lot of people get a great bait like that and they'll practice casting it five times. [00:32:45] Speaker 0: Well, you've given that crab, you know, five concussions, dragged it across the water, and they're wondering why their crab doesn't look as good as it once did. [00:32:53] Speaker 0: You can be very, very careful with it. [00:32:55] Speaker 0: Like, keep it in a in a little bucket up on the up on the deck. [00:32:59] Speaker 0: Make sure that water is changed out regularly, and you can handle your crab very, very gently so that when you do throw it at a permit, you're gonna get the the the boat the best and most, effective reaction out of that crab, and it's gonna be shooting to the bottom, the legs are gonna be clicking, and that permit is gonna come over and pulverize it. [00:33:22] Speaker 0: That's a big difference. [00:33:23] Speaker 0: And that's that's what sets a lot of permit fishermen apart from others, a lot of guides apart from others, is the way that they take care of their crabs. [00:33:30] Speaker 0: And you can even take that a step further that if you have crabs left over, you need to feed these things. [00:33:36] Speaker 0: Like, throw a old ballyhoo in there. [00:33:38] Speaker 0: Throw a fish skin in there. [00:33:39] Speaker 0: Throw a piece of of fish. [00:33:41] Speaker 0: I try to keep my crabs separate from my shrimp because, for whatever reason, a lot of times, the shrimp will put off a toxin that can kill everything in the tank. [00:33:49] Speaker 0: So I don't keep that in there at all. [00:33:51] Speaker 0: But when when we're out, you know, we're using a bubbler in in the live well so that you're getting oxygen in the live well, but you're not just circulating the water so the crabs are constantly have to swim against the current. [00:34:05] Speaker 0: We want the crabs to be very still and calm and peaceful in in there, and we want the bubbler to provide the oxygen so they don't have to move at all. [00:34:14] Speaker 0: And that's where you're gonna get the most action out of your crabs and have the healthiest crabs. [00:34:19] Speaker 0: Give them something to eat. [00:34:21] Speaker 0: Use the bubbler. [00:34:22] Speaker 0: If you don't have a bubbler in your lab, well, you can get the Frable, Magnum bait station, which has bubblers in it. [00:34:28] Speaker 0: They're very quiet. [00:34:29] Speaker 0: We used those this year. [00:34:30] Speaker 0: It was fantastic. [00:34:31] Speaker 0: I could keep crabs right up on the deck with me, and the the bubbler was was making those crabs just supercharged. [00:34:39] Speaker 0: It was awesome. [00:34:41] Speaker 0: So those are those are the the best baits. [00:34:44] Speaker 0: Now, the last thing we're gonna talk about are some techniques. [00:34:47] Speaker 0: So now we've got we've got our rigs, got our we got the right rod, we got the right reel, we've got it spooled up with the right line, we've tied on the right fluorocarbon with the right knots, and we've found the right hook. [00:34:59] Speaker 0: We've we've taken care of our bait, and now we're out there and we're actually fishing. [00:35:03] Speaker 0: K? [00:35:04] Speaker 0: Let's just say we're fishing with a a live crab. [00:35:08] Speaker 0: So the most important thing, as we've discussed several times, is it is how far can you cast? [00:35:17] Speaker 0: And this is something that you can practice. [00:35:18] Speaker 0: You don't have to have a live crab. [00:35:20] Speaker 0: You can have something that's relatively the same weight as a live crab, maybe practice it with a jig, but you can practice just overall casting distance with this with this permit rig that you have and you can just practice. [00:35:32] Speaker 0: Throw how far can you throw? [00:35:33] Speaker 0: And some people can obviously cast a lot further than others and they're they're getting more out of the rod. [00:35:38] Speaker 0: There's a technique to it and it just doesn't come by just muscling it. [00:35:42] Speaker 0: You have to get out there and you have to practice. [00:35:44] Speaker 0: You have to have the right amount of overhang from from the the the amount of rod line that's outside of the rod tip, and you have to wind up correctly, and then you have to throw it. [00:35:54] Speaker 0: And you have to do it in a way that you're not gonna throw the bait off. [00:35:57] Speaker 0: You're not gonna lose your crab every time you throw it. [00:36:00] Speaker 0: So there is some practice that you can do. [00:36:03] Speaker 0: The number one thing is casting distance. [00:36:07] Speaker 0: The second thing is accuracy, and the mix of those two determines your success or failure for the most part. [00:36:14] Speaker 0: But you can also practice accuracy. [00:36:16] Speaker 0: You can practice distance. [00:36:17] Speaker 0: Can you just throw it out there as far as you possibly can? [00:36:20] Speaker 0: Then can we start to control that? [00:36:22] Speaker 0: And now can we hit a hula hoop at, you know, a 100 yards? [00:36:27] Speaker 0: Can we can we throw it someplace? [00:36:30] Speaker 0: You know, can you can you hit a small target? [00:36:34] Speaker 0: And as you decrease the distance, your accuracy and your percentage should go up. [00:36:40] Speaker 0: So you should be able to cast much more accurately at 40 feet than you can at at a 140 yards. [00:36:46] Speaker 0: Right? [00:36:47] Speaker 0: Okay. [00:36:47] Speaker 0: So you can practice those things, and you can practice it with the different lines that we've talked about, and you can practice it with the different rods that we've talked about, and you can see the differences between the rods so that when you get out on the water and you're actually fishing, you're far more familiar with your gear. [00:37:02] Speaker 0: One of the things, that a lot of fishermen will do is the splashless cast, where they will throw very close to the fish, they'll cast low and hard, they'll move the rod up to an upward angle, they'll feather the line, and then make the bait land on top of the water. [00:37:20] Speaker 0: And if you're really good at it, you can see that you can make a crab, a shrimp, a jig, whatever, land with virtually no splash. [00:37:28] Speaker 0: You can cast very close to a perma or a bonefish, and you can be very, very good at that cast. [00:37:34] Speaker 0: In my opinion, that cast is is excellent cast to have in your in your toolkit and you're gonna use it occasionally, but it's also kinda risky because if you don't do it quite right, you slam that crab right into the water right in front of the permit and you scare them. [00:37:50] Speaker 0: Another way that you can, throw to a permit is if you have the luxury of the fish being well within your casting distance, you can cast well beyond it and well ahead of it and then use the rod and reel to bring that crab back to the permit like you're surfing it on the on the top of the water and get it to where, the permit has never heard the the the bait land in the water. [00:38:16] Speaker 0: You haven't scared it. [00:38:17] Speaker 0: You've thrown it far out in front of the fish and far beyond the fish, and then you have slowly and carefully reeled that crab back on the surface until you see that there's gonna be an intercept point between that fish and your crab, and then you just simply let it drop. [00:38:34] Speaker 0: And the most effective presentation for a permit, regardless of of tackle, is when you cast in a way that the fish feels like it discovered that crab. [00:38:46] Speaker 0: Like, all of a sudden, that crab was swimming on the surface. [00:38:48] Speaker 0: It sees that permit, and it shoots to the bottom. [00:38:51] Speaker 0: It's not it's not as effective when you slam it in front of the of the permit. [00:38:55] Speaker 0: Sometimes that'll work. [00:38:56] Speaker 0: I mean, often, lots of times that'll work. [00:38:59] Speaker 0: But if you can do it in a way that the permit is like, oh, look what I just found, get a lot more bites like that. [00:39:07] Speaker 0: So the casting past and surfing it in is definitely number one. [00:39:11] Speaker 0: And then, if you are effective with your cast and you let the the crab fall to the bottom, you'll see the permit come over and it will tip up on top of the crab. [00:39:24] Speaker 0: Using, braided line, which has no stretch, and you're using, one of these Saint Croix rods that I'm talking about or another rod that is very sensitive, you will feel the permit pick it up. [00:39:39] Speaker 0: Thump. [00:39:40] Speaker 0: Like, one big thump. [00:39:41] Speaker 0: Like, thump. [00:39:42] Speaker 0: And then it just kind of starts moving off. [00:39:46] Speaker 0: And what you do at that point is you have the rod tip held high, and you just start to slowly reel. [00:39:53] Speaker 0: And as that circle hook is pulled around to the corner of that permit's mouth, you will feel that there is some weight, a little bit more weight, a little bit more weight. [00:40:03] Speaker 0: And as you keep reeling, there's more weight and more weight and more weight, and the rod starts bending and bowing down. [00:40:11] Speaker 0: That permit, at this point, starts feeling that and can do one of two things. [00:40:15] Speaker 0: It can either take off, which is what it does most of the time, or it can turn to face you and open its mouth, and sometimes the crab comes out. [00:40:28] Speaker 0: So this is why I say that you should start reeling and keep reeling until the drag goes out because and unless you feel the crab come out and it goes all of a sudden, it goes limp. [00:40:42] Speaker 0: Well, stop what you're doing. [00:40:43] Speaker 0: Stop everything, and the fish will likely think that the that the crab just got out of its mouth on its own and will come over and it will attack it again. [00:40:52] Speaker 0: And again, you will feel the big thump. [00:40:55] Speaker 0: You can keep the rod tip very high. [00:40:57] Speaker 0: You start reeling, and you'll feel more weight, more weight, more weight, more weight, and I'm continuing to reel, continuing to reel, continuing to reel. [00:41:06] Speaker 0: That fish takes off, and I give it a few more reels against the drag. [00:41:13] Speaker 0: A lot of people tell you not to reel against the drag, but in this case, I think it's very important because if that fish turns back to you, oftentimes, you the line goes slack, and the crab comes out of his mouth. [00:41:27] Speaker 0: So that's why I think that you can you can get that hook in there just a little bit little bit better by just reeling a little bit longer. [00:41:35] Speaker 0: So now you've got them hooked up. [00:41:36] Speaker 0: You fight them. [00:41:38] Speaker 0: When you're around the boat, permit have a tendency to take you for a couple laps around the boat, so it's often good practice to get the outboard in a position to where you can get around it. [00:41:50] Speaker 0: If you got a trolling motor, you know, be ready to push the rod deep into the water and go under the trolling motor. [00:41:56] Speaker 0: Try to fit try to fight the fish up around the bow so that you can just go, right out in front of the bow and instead of having to take a full lap around the boat. [00:42:06] Speaker 0: And a landing net is a really good idea. [00:42:10] Speaker 0: A landing net is a is a really good idea. [00:42:13] Speaker 0: That will cut the fight time considerably, and you can get that fish back in the water if you choose to release it, which I hope you do. [00:42:20] Speaker 0: And, and they'll be in good good shape. [00:42:23] Speaker 0: But, that is pretty much permit fishing with a spinning rod one zero one. [00:42:30] Speaker 0: And if you have any questions about this, I'm more than happy to talk about it. [00:42:35] Speaker 0: I love permit fishing, and I've I've it's my favorite style of fishing. [00:42:39] Speaker 0: You can hit me up, podcast at saltwater experience dot com. [00:42:42] Speaker 0: If you like this podcast, love love it if you would stop, take a minute or two, and leave a rating and review on iTunes. [00:42:51] Speaker 0: That makes all the difference in the world, in in helping other people to find this podcast. [00:42:58] Speaker 0: And, you can also share it with a friend. [00:43:00] Speaker 0: You can just go copy the link and text it to a friend that might like Permit Fishing or may have had a hard time with with some of these techniques and you think this might help them, you'll be their hero. [00:43:10] Speaker 0: That would be awesome. [00:43:12] Speaker 0: So anyway, we got one more part to this series and that is gonna be entirely about fly fishing. [00:43:18] Speaker 0: That's gonna come up next week and, we may have a special guest for that. [00:43:23] Speaker 0: Alright. [00:43:23] Speaker 0: So hope that helps you with your permit fishing and we will, see you next week. [00:43:29] Speaker 0: Talk about fly fishing for permit. [00:43:30] Speaker 0: Alright. [00:43:31] Speaker 0: See you. ================================================================================ # EP 37 | How To Catch A Permit With A Spinning Rod | https://traffic.megaphone.fm/WPCM3282242042.mp3 # Words: 3944 | Deepgram Nova-2 [00:00:00] Speaker 0: If you [00:00:00] Speaker 1: want everything you need to take care of your boat, StarBright's got the solution. [00:00:04] Speaker 1: It's called boat care in a bucket. [00:00:06] Speaker 1: That's right. [00:00:07] Speaker 1: One three and a half gallon bucket packed with essentials, vinyl bright, deck cleaner, marine polish, a wash mitt, hull cleaner, and boat wash. [00:00:15] Speaker 1: That one kit will keep any boat clean and protected, but that's just the start. 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[00:01:02] Speaker 1: HH Insurance showed me that my old policy did not cover The Bahamas or nighttime navigation, two major gaps that could have cost me a lot. [00:01:12] Speaker 1: Jake and Landon fixed it fast. [00:01:14] Speaker 1: They know charter policies better than anyone I've ever worked with. [00:01:17] Speaker 1: Call (727) 498-5551 or visit hhinsgroup.com and tell them Tom Roland sent you. [00:01:27] Speaker 1: Trusted enough to go with me to The Seychelles, my Danco pliers are a staple in my kit. [00:01:32] Speaker 1: Check out dancopliers.com and build yours today. [00:01:47] Speaker 0: Hey, everybody. [00:01:48] Speaker 0: Welcome to today's how to Tuesday. [00:01:50] Speaker 0: This is one that is near and dear to my heart. [00:01:52] Speaker 0: How to catch a permit on a spinning rod. [00:01:53] Speaker 0: I've had a lot of questions about this, so I wanna go over and dedicate an entire episode of How To Tuesday to catching a permit on a spinning rod. [00:02:01] Speaker 0: It's really one of the most fun things to do in all of saltwater fishing. [00:02:05] Speaker 0: So here's a chance to, at least give my opinion on on how it goes, catching a permit on a spinning rod. [00:02:15] Speaker 0: First starts with the outfit itself, and I like to use, for my battle axe rod, I'm gonna use two different rods. [00:02:24] Speaker 0: One is one's kind of a summertime outfit, and one is a regular all around go to rod. [00:02:32] Speaker 0: And the all around go to rod, which I'm gonna use 90% of the time, is a Saint Croix avid spinning reel or sorry, spinning rod. [00:02:42] Speaker 0: I like the avid series, and I like a seven foot medium heavy fast action. [00:02:50] Speaker 0: And, if you were to look at the at the code, it's VIS70MHF, and that's the Saint Croix avid series. [00:03:00] Speaker 0: I like a seven foot rod, personally. [00:03:03] Speaker 0: That's me. [00:03:04] Speaker 0: Some people prefer seven and a half foot rod. [00:03:06] Speaker 0: I like a seven foot rod myself. [00:03:08] Speaker 0: I feel like I can cast the most accurately with it, and, it is my favorite. [00:03:15] Speaker 0: So I'm a start with that rod. [00:03:17] Speaker 0: I'm gonna pair that rod with a Daiwa 3,000, Ballistic. [00:03:24] Speaker 0: Now the 3,000 Ballistic can hold, 20 pounds or 20 pound j braid, 310 yards of it. [00:03:32] Speaker 0: So that's plenty plenty of line for a permit. [00:03:35] Speaker 0: It's a very small, very light reel with a really good drag. [00:03:39] Speaker 0: You can actually go down with the ballistic because it has good line capacity, and also the drag is fantastic. [00:03:45] Speaker 0: So that's the reel I'm gonna pick, and then I'm going to use J Braid, which is Daiwa's braid. [00:03:52] Speaker 0: I really like that braid. [00:03:54] Speaker 0: It doesn't tangle very often. [00:03:55] Speaker 0: I use, the light blue, and, I'll use that in 15 for the most part. [00:04:02] Speaker 0: I'll also have some reel spooled up with 20, and, so fifteen and twenty on that. [00:04:08] Speaker 0: I'm gonna tie, fluorocarbon leader onto the end of it, and I'm only gonna use about a foot and a half of, a fluorocarbon leader on the end. [00:04:20] Speaker 0: That's all the leader that you need, and, that's gonna allow me to cast accurately so that the connection between the braid and the fluorocarbon is outside of the tip of the rod when I go to cast. [00:04:33] Speaker 0: If you have too much, you have to cast the knot, which is either going to be a double uni or a j knot or something like that, where you're gonna attach the braid to the fluorocarbon. [00:04:46] Speaker 0: And then I'm finally going to attach a hook, and I am a firm, adamant believer that circle hook is the way to go with permit. [00:04:57] Speaker 0: For many, many years, I struggled with using j hooks and watching people miss them and watching people get the bite and, come back with an empty shell and never even feel the fish at all and never even really know that the fish bit. [00:05:12] Speaker 0: And he bit it, smashed the crab, and left, and, did not get hooked with a j with a j hook. [00:05:19] Speaker 0: I don't really like the j hook for permit fishing, and I really I'm gonna say never use one because and I rarely use the words always and never, but I never use one because the percentage is so bad that there is virtually zero chance that I'm going to run out of circle hooks in my boat because I buy a ton of them. [00:05:43] Speaker 0: And I have boxes upon boxes upon boxes of them, so I absolutely will not run out of circle hooks. [00:05:49] Speaker 0: I've got them stashed in different places in the boat. [00:05:52] Speaker 0: Not gonna run out. [00:05:54] Speaker 0: I like a fourzero circle, and I'll use various manufacturers. [00:05:58] Speaker 0: I'm not just dead set on one. [00:06:00] Speaker 0: I do have a preferred and favorite hook, which is the, Offshore Angler branded hook. [00:06:08] Speaker 0: It's a short shank, very short shank, four aught circle, and, it's it's the Offshore Angler brand. [00:06:17] Speaker 0: You can go get it at Bass Pro Shops or Offshore Angler. [00:06:22] Speaker 0: Second favorite hook would probably be the Gamakatsu, third, Owner, and then down from there, there's plenty of others. [00:06:28] Speaker 0: I used to use a Matsuo circle hook and had great success with that one. [00:06:33] Speaker 0: It's not as available as some of the other ones, so kinda go with with what I can get. [00:06:38] Speaker 0: There's a worldwide sportsman right there in Alvarado. [00:06:40] Speaker 0: Easy to go in there and pick this particular hook up. [00:06:43] Speaker 0: It's a very short shank hook. [00:06:45] Speaker 0: When you see it, you won't believe it, but it works great. [00:06:49] Speaker 0: And, so that's my rig. [00:06:51] Speaker 0: That's my 90% rig. [00:06:55] Speaker 0: The next thing is definitely the most important. [00:06:59] Speaker 0: While the rod is important, the reel is important, the line, the hook is extremely important, but the next thing is even more important than all of those, and that's the bait. [00:07:10] Speaker 0: And there's not a lot of debate, You know, you you talk about almost anything in fishing, and if you were to say what's the best bait for a tarpon, you'd have tremendous debate. [00:07:20] Speaker 0: Some people would say mullet. [00:07:21] Speaker 0: Some people would say pilchard. [00:07:23] Speaker 0: Some people would say pinfish. [00:07:24] Speaker 0: Some people would say crab. [00:07:25] Speaker 0: Some people would say shrimp. [00:07:26] Speaker 0: On and on down the line. [00:07:28] Speaker 0: Right? [00:07:29] Speaker 0: Permit, I don't really know anyone that's gonna debate that the best bait for a permit is a live blue crab. [00:07:38] Speaker 0: We are very lucky in the state of Florida that almost every bait shop, tackle shop, any place that sells bait, live bait anyway, also sells live shrimp, live crabs. [00:07:52] Speaker 0: They're very available. [00:07:55] Speaker 0: The trick is is to be able to be allowed to pick the crabs yourself. [00:08:02] Speaker 0: Because if you go into the bait shop and and they give you a bunch of crabs that are six inches across, you're not gonna catch any permit. [00:08:11] Speaker 0: Those are way too big. [00:08:12] Speaker 0: And if you go in there and they only give you these tiny ones, you're not gonna be able to cast them far enough. [00:08:18] Speaker 0: I think the smaller the crab, the better the bait, but there's a there is a a balance between how small the crab is and how far you can throw it. [00:08:31] Speaker 0: So I'm looking at a tape measure right now, and I'm looking at at the the crab size that I like. [00:08:39] Speaker 0: For permit, I like a crab that's two inches across the carapace. [00:08:43] Speaker 0: Two and a half inches is still in the sweet spot of really nice. [00:08:48] Speaker 0: Three inches is starting to get a little too big. [00:08:50] Speaker 0: Three and a half inches, you're gonna get some fish to eat it. [00:08:56] Speaker 0: You're gonna you they're also gonna start to turn it down. [00:08:59] Speaker 0: When you get some when you get some smaller fish around, you're gonna get some refusals on that. [00:09:06] Speaker 0: So this goes back to just selecting the bait is is so important. [00:09:12] Speaker 0: And I'm gonna go smaller before I go larger. [00:09:16] Speaker 0: Now if you if you get to the bait shop and all they have are two inch crabs, you might wanna get some split shots too because you're probably not going to be able to throw that crab even with 15 pound j braid as far as you might like. [00:09:31] Speaker 0: So you can put a split shot or two above the crab, and it's not my favorite, but it will help you to get it out there a little bit further. [00:09:42] Speaker 0: My favorite is to get the exact right size crab, which is about somewhere between two and two and a half inches across the carapace, and I'm gonna hook that crab right on the point of the carapace. [00:09:59] Speaker 0: I guess, close to the point as I possibly can, there is an area in there which is kinda like an earlobe. [00:10:05] Speaker 0: You can pierce it and not kill the crab. [00:10:09] Speaker 0: If you get into the white part of the body, the crab's not gonna last very long. [00:10:13] Speaker 0: You're getting into its internal organs, stuff starts leaking out, crab doesn't last very long. [00:10:20] Speaker 0: You want to what I like to do is just put the point of the hook through the edge, and instead of just cramming it through there and breaking the shell, I will just start to drill it back and forth back and forth with the circle hook. [00:10:36] Speaker 0: I'll let the point go through the shell, and I'm happy with with the placement of it. [00:10:41] Speaker 0: And then I'll just start drilling that hook back and forth just just with my fingers. [00:10:45] Speaker 0: I'll just move the hook back and forth, and it will it'll look like a drill. [00:10:49] Speaker 0: It'll just start drilling away some of the shell material, and the hook will will go through. [00:10:56] Speaker 0: It'll go through with a small hole, and, then the barb or the hook will penetrate, and the crab won't be able to get off. [00:11:05] Speaker 0: And now, at this point, it's really important that, you have a a good, healthy crab. [00:11:13] Speaker 0: You've hooked it properly. [00:11:14] Speaker 0: You've got the right rig. [00:11:15] Speaker 0: You've got the right hook, the right leader, the right line, the right rod, the right reel. [00:11:19] Speaker 0: Everything's going your way right now. [00:11:21] Speaker 0: So what you wanna do is maintain the health of that crab. [00:11:26] Speaker 0: You want a little bucket up there on the deck with you, or if you're moving slowly and the crab's not gonna be skipping across the water, you can just dip the crab in the water. [00:11:40] Speaker 0: Keep the crab wet. [00:11:41] Speaker 0: So you're standing there waiting for the permit to show up. [00:11:44] Speaker 0: You've got your, your bale open, your finger on the line, and the crab in the water. [00:11:50] Speaker 0: That's the that's the Florida Keys way to do it. [00:11:54] Speaker 0: You keep that crab wet at all times. [00:11:58] Speaker 0: If you are standing up on a cooler, to get better visibility and see more fish, which is also a very good idea, sometimes you're too high for this system to work. [00:12:10] Speaker 0: So some people will take a small bucket, you know, a little bait bucket, maybe it's a five gallon bucket, put a little seawater in it, and, make sure that the crab is staying wet and staying healthy all the time. [00:12:22] Speaker 0: You also wanna avoid practice casting with this thing. [00:12:26] Speaker 0: There's no reason to cast it until you see a fish. [00:12:30] Speaker 0: You can cast at what you think is a fish, but just remember that the more you cast, the more you're gonna need to change your bait. [00:12:37] Speaker 0: So after you cast a crab three or four times, you're basically given that thing a concussion over and over and over again, and, he's not gonna be moving as well. [00:12:48] Speaker 0: He's not gonna be moving as fast. [00:12:50] Speaker 0: What you want is a crab that when you put it in the in your hand or on the bottom of the boat, it's it's moving its legs so fast that it's clicking. [00:13:00] Speaker 0: It has a clicking sound to it. [00:13:03] Speaker 0: You'll see that that goes away after you cast it a couple times. [00:13:07] Speaker 0: If you cast a a crab like that that has this clicking sound, its its legs are moving so fast that it's that it's clicking they're clicking against the shell, you're not getting a refusal. [00:13:20] Speaker 0: That that permit sees that crab, he's coming over, he's going to eat it. [00:13:23] Speaker 0: K? [00:13:24] Speaker 0: If it has claws on it, even better. [00:13:27] Speaker 0: I love claws on crabs. [00:13:29] Speaker 0: I don't like to reach in there and grab them and have them pinch me. [00:13:32] Speaker 0: No. [00:13:32] Speaker 0: That's no fun. [00:13:33] Speaker 0: Nobody likes that. [00:13:35] Speaker 0: But if I have a bunch of crabs that I have kept myself and fed and kept healthy and they, they they were allowed to grow and allowed to grow their claws back. [00:13:47] Speaker 0: I just know I'm just gonna put on a little glove. [00:13:49] Speaker 0: I'm gonna reach in there. [00:13:49] Speaker 0: I'm gonna grab the, the crab, and he's gonna bite the glove, and I'm gonna be able to hook him up, and everything's gonna be fine. [00:13:58] Speaker 0: But, you can't, oftentimes in the bait shops, the the claws are removed. [00:14:06] Speaker 0: That's fine. [00:14:07] Speaker 0: You'll catch plenty of fish like that, but the best by far is the are are the ones with claws. [00:14:12] Speaker 0: So if I can have the claws, I will keep the claws. [00:14:15] Speaker 0: Okay. [00:14:15] Speaker 0: So now we see a fish and we're going to make a make a cast to it. [00:14:21] Speaker 0: What we're going to do is we're gonna cast beyond the fish and then bring the crab to it as opposed to trying to crash it right into its face. [00:14:32] Speaker 0: We have the ability, to cast a lot further probably than we need to because we're using the new generation of braided lines like the Daiwa j braid. [00:14:42] Speaker 0: It has the the, the line diameter of four pound test, and it is, it's 15. [00:14:50] Speaker 0: That's awesome. [00:14:52] Speaker 0: Maintenance you can cast a lot further. [00:14:54] Speaker 0: And if you get the right size crab, you can cast a long way. [00:14:58] Speaker 0: You can cast 15 feet past the past the permit and then reel it into its line of travel and then let it go slack. [00:15:09] Speaker 0: That crab, if it is, one like I'm talking about that has the clicking sound as it's going down and it is really swimming, it will swim almost as fast as a fish to the bottom. [00:15:20] Speaker 0: If a permit sees that, he is on it like you won't believe. [00:15:24] Speaker 0: That's the that's it. [00:15:26] Speaker 0: That's classic permit fishing. [00:15:28] Speaker 0: That's what you're looking for. [00:15:29] Speaker 0: The fish goes over there, he tails, their big mud comes up, and and you got him. [00:15:34] Speaker 0: He came over and he ate your crab, and, you just raise the rod tip without moving the line, close the bail, and just start reeling. [00:15:43] Speaker 0: And as you reel, that circle hook will find its home in the corner of his mouth, and now you are on. [00:15:50] Speaker 0: Contrary to a lot of people, I wanna make sure that that permit doesn't turn and we do not get that hook put into it. [00:15:59] Speaker 0: So I encourage reel until the drag starts going out and then reel for five seconds after. [00:16:06] Speaker 0: K? [00:16:07] Speaker 0: Learned that from Mark Croka. [00:16:08] Speaker 0: I know that he's probably caught more slams than anyone in the state of Florida. [00:16:12] Speaker 0: He knows a thing or two about how to set the hook in a permit. [00:16:15] Speaker 0: He told me that a long time ago, and I was like, reel against the drag? [00:16:18] Speaker 0: What are you talking about? [00:16:19] Speaker 0: He's like, doesn't matter, man. [00:16:21] Speaker 0: Just just reel against the drag, get this hook set, and then you don't reel against the drag, obviously, when you're fighting the fish. [00:16:27] Speaker 0: But you sometimes what happens is you go down to set that hook and the permit turns straight at you, and you think you've got him, and you don't get the hook set very well. [00:16:39] Speaker 0: So I I suggest reel until you set the hook and then reel a little more, and then until that fish really starts taking off, you're you're keep you're staying tight with him. [00:16:49] Speaker 0: Okay? [00:16:50] Speaker 0: So that is pretty much how to catch a permit on a spinning rod. [00:16:55] Speaker 0: You can also do it with a jig, with shrimp. [00:16:58] Speaker 0: You can do it with just a shrimp. [00:17:00] Speaker 0: You can do it with a bear jig. [00:17:02] Speaker 0: You can catch a permit on a fly rod. [00:17:04] Speaker 0: All are awesome ways to do it, and I'm sure that we will dedicate future how to Tuesdays to how to do that. [00:17:11] Speaker 0: I wanna go over, one more little thing here. [00:17:14] Speaker 0: Because I'm in the beginning, I said that I use two rods. [00:17:18] Speaker 0: I'll use a battle axe rod, which is seven foot medium heavy fast action Saint Croix legend or Avid, sorry, and then I will also have what I call a summer rod. [00:17:30] Speaker 0: And the summer rod, is gonna be the same type of rod, Saint Croix Avid, and it comes in an eight foot model. [00:17:38] Speaker 0: Now the eight foot model, I'm a go a little bit lighter, medium light, eight feet long like a fly rod, and then I'm gonna put, lighter line, 10 pound. [00:17:50] Speaker 0: And I'm gonna be able to throw a small crab further. [00:17:55] Speaker 0: Now, first of all, we would want to use a small crab because oftentimes that's what you get in the summertime. [00:18:02] Speaker 0: That's what's available at the bait shops. [00:18:04] Speaker 0: But secondly, summertime fishing, it can be slick calm. [00:18:09] Speaker 0: And permit the the calmer it is, the spookier the fish are, the further you have to cast. [00:18:14] Speaker 0: A lot of people don't think that's the the way it is, but as it gets calmer, you have to cast farther because they won't tolerate the boat pushing up on them. [00:18:24] Speaker 0: When it's really windy, you don't have to cast very far. [00:18:27] Speaker 0: When it's really, really calm, you have to cast a lot further. [00:18:30] Speaker 0: So I'll go to an eight foot rod, 10 pound test, and a smaller hook because I'm gonna use a smaller crab. [00:18:37] Speaker 0: So I might go to a two ought or a three ought hook depending on the size of the crab, and then I'm gonna be able to throw that a little further. [00:18:44] Speaker 0: If the crabs are really small, I'm gonna put a little split shot above it, and I'm gonna do the same the same kind of thing. [00:18:53] Speaker 0: So that is how to catch a permit on a spinning rod. [00:18:57] Speaker 0: I'm sure that people will have plenty of questions about it. [00:19:00] Speaker 0: One thing that is is not often debated is the power of the of the blue crab. [00:19:07] Speaker 0: The blue crab is a is a bait that is very it's very hardy bait all in all, but you do have to take care of it. [00:19:15] Speaker 0: Don't cast it a lot. [00:19:17] Speaker 0: Keep it wet all the time, and then when you have, crabs left over, it's easy to keep them overnight. [00:19:25] Speaker 0: We've done some how to Tuesdays about how to keep your bait overnight. [00:19:28] Speaker 0: You can do the Jeff Maggio, put, freeze some seawater in in water bottles, open it up, put about an inch and a half of water, two inches of water in the bottom of a cooler, set it up on a brick or some sort of something so that, the cooler's at an incline. [00:19:48] Speaker 0: That way, they'll the crabs can be completely submerged on one end of the cooler, and they can walk up to where they can walk out of the water and breathe air. [00:19:59] Speaker 0: And if you can keep that cool that water cool, those crabs will easily make it overnight. [00:20:04] Speaker 0: Easily. [00:20:06] Speaker 0: They'll also make it overnight in a big live well in your boat. [00:20:10] Speaker 0: The one thing that is really bad and the big place you can make a mistake with a lot of crabs is, say, that you have you bought 50 crabs and you are trying to keep them overnight, and you also have a dozen shrimp left over. [00:20:23] Speaker 0: So you take those 50 crabs and your dozen shrimp and you put them in a bucket and you try to keep them, and those shrimp die, and for whatever reason, they put off a toxin, which will kill every single one of your crabs. [00:20:34] Speaker 0: So the one rule that I have, I don't keep shrimp with crabs overnight, period, at all. [00:20:41] Speaker 0: Don't do it. [00:20:42] Speaker 0: I've lost way too many crabs like that. [00:20:45] Speaker 0: Keep thinking I'm gonna figure it out how to do it, but it's just not even worth it. [00:20:49] Speaker 0: Have two coolers. [00:20:50] Speaker 0: Keep your shrimp in one, keep your crabs in the other. [00:20:54] Speaker 0: And also the the crabs will reach up and they'll grab those shrimp and they'll nip nip at them, and they'll eventually kill them. [00:21:01] Speaker 0: So even if the shrimp don't die, the crabs are killing them. [00:21:05] Speaker 0: And before they can eat them, the, toxin that this dead shrimp put off kill the crabs. [00:21:12] Speaker 0: So or can kill the crabs. [00:21:14] Speaker 0: It doesn't happen every time, but it always happens on tournament day or when you really need it. [00:21:20] Speaker 0: So I just suggest not keeping shrimp and crabs together. [00:21:24] Speaker 0: Alright. [00:21:26] Speaker 0: I hope that helps. [00:21:27] Speaker 0: How to catch a permit on a spinning rod is one of the greatest things in all of angling. [00:21:32] Speaker 0: If you haven't done it, you need to. [00:21:35] Speaker 0: I used to say I'd like to catch I'd rather catch one on fly than 10 on on bait, but that was before I ever caught 10 on bait. [00:21:43] Speaker 0: Then I caught 10 on bait. [00:21:45] Speaker 0: It's pretty fun. [00:21:46] Speaker 0: You should catch 10 on bait. [00:21:48] Speaker 0: It's really good. [00:21:49] Speaker 0: Really fun. [00:21:50] Speaker 0: You learn a lot about the permit, and if you're a fly fisherman and you've never caught a permit on fly and you keep trying, well, maybe you ought to catch a couple on a on a crab and a spinning rod because you will see how the fish reacts, you'll see the reaction you're trying to get out of it, and you will very quickly learn a lot more, and you will be a better fly fisherman for permit because you've had the experience of catching a couple on on crabs. [00:22:19] Speaker 0: That's my opinion. [00:22:20] Speaker 0: I don't know. [00:22:21] Speaker 0: Some people disagree. [00:22:22] Speaker 0: Alright. [00:22:22] Speaker 0: How to Tuesday, a little longer one this time. [00:22:25] Speaker 0: How to catch a permit on a spinning rod. [00:22:27] Speaker 0: I hope you enjoyed it. [00:22:27] Speaker 0: If you did, send me a pot send me an email at podcast at saltwater experience. [00:22:32] Speaker 0: If you got further questions, send to that same address, podcast@saltwaterexperience.com. [00:22:38] Speaker 0: If you have just a minute, if you wouldn't mind going and rating and reviewing this, podcast on iTunes, give it a five star rating and some kind of nice review, that would be awesome. [00:22:48] Speaker 0: I'd really appreciate that. [00:22:50] Speaker 0: Alright. [00:22:50] Speaker 0: Until next week. [00:22:51] Speaker 0: See you.