I’ve gotten a lot of questions about permit, and it’s no secret that permit is my favorite fish. And there’s a reason for that. I was fortunate enough to start guiding in Key West, Florida which is the epicenter of permit fishing. So I found myself in a place where it was the best place to fish for permit but I did not know much about the species at the time.

Have you ever attempted to catch a Grand Slam? Do you want to in the future? Well I recently was filming an episode for Saltwater Experience and we set out to catch a Grand Slam (Permit, Tarpon and Bonefish). I realized that it would make a great How 2 Tuesday.

I was just down with my friends Captain Steve Rodger and Captain Scott Walker filming Into The Blue. One of the things we did was go out in the Gulf and look for permit in the wrecks. Typically we catch permit in the Florida Keys a lot - the flats fishermen catch them on the flats and also in the channels, there are certain times of there year where they collect out on the reef and then we like to catch them on the wrecks. However, on this particular day we had some rain and it was cloudy which provided a problem because we normally like to be able to see them first and then throw over there. But even with problems like bad weather you can still go get these permit offshore.

St. Croix Spinning Rod (Avid VIS70MHF Series) medium action 7ft rod - this one I feel like I can cast the most accurately with. I’ll pair that rod with the Daiwa 3000 Ballistic which can hold 20 pound J-Braid 320 yards of it. It is a very small and light reel with great drag, you can actually go down with it because it has good line capacity. I will tie 1.5 feet of fluorocarbon leader on the end of it which allows 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. If you have too much then you have to cast the knot (which is a Double Uni or J-Knot).