Sometimes, the pendulum swings in the right direction. But, according to Mikes Dawes of WorldCast Anglers, it is always swinging one way or the other. Things must have been going well when he caught this huge permit, held in the photo by his guide.
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photo by Mike Dawes, WorldCast Anglers |
Mike wrote this about this gorgeous permit, taken on a fly:
More often than not when fishing for permit with a fly, I find myself thinking, “What am I doing?” I often wonder why my infatuation for saltwater fishing with a fly had to get stuck on permit. What I have learned in fishing for permit with a fly over the past eight years is how quickly the pendulum swings. For the most part, I think about fly fishing as life in fast forward, but when fishing for permit with a fly, it is more like life at Mach speed.
During a day of permit fishing, your emotions can go from negative or questioning (thoughts of “This is the wrong fly,” “There are no fish here,” “How old is my backing?” “Is my tippet too big?” “How much money am I wasting?”) to elation and panic (“oh my God, he ate it,” “Clear the line!” “I need to land this fish” ) in a matter of seconds. With this fish, the pendulum swung in the right direction quickly.
After getting wrapped on rocks twice and jumping out of the boat each time to clear the backing, tailing the fish twice only to watch it runs another 150 yards each time because the guide could not hang on to the fish in the water, we landed this beast. I do not know how much it weighed–the guide estimated it was around 40 pound–but we will never really know. All I know is that after we landed the fish, permit fishing made sense, for now, until the next refusal and the pendulum swings back to reality.
Did you take any measurements?