Permit - Diet and Feeding Habits

Permit will eat a wide variety of marine life, from grass shrimp and small conch to lobsters and juvenile octopus. Permit are opportunistic and will eat the same food day after day if it remains plentiful. And while the ways of this fish are still quite mysterious to us, we do know that the bulk of the permits diet consists primarily of crabs.
The crabs found on the tidal flats throughout the world are camouflaged to mimic the color found on the bottom of the flat where they live. If the bottom has a mottled brownish hue, then that’s more or less the color that the crabs on that particular flat will be. The majority of the crabs found on the flats in Belize will be olive green or some variation of olive. Small brown and beige crabs can also be found in Southern Belize and anglers should have a selection of flies in colors that cover this spectrum.
Many first timers to these flats are surprised by how small these crabs are. If you hold up a nickel between your forefinger and thumb, and then imagine small legs sticking out of the coin, that’s about the size of the average flats crab in Southern Belize. I’ve had many anglers come down with nothing but crab flies tied on 1’s and 2’s in their fly boxes, which may be fine for the Bahamas or the Florida Keys. In Belize, however, these flies are too big and will not produce. At least not on the flats! These larger flies can be effective when targeting permit in deeper water (over 6 feet) but that’s about the only time they should be coming out of your fly box in down here. If you want to catch permit on the flats in Belize, you’ve got to “match the hatch” so to speak by presenting flies that are roughly the same size and color as the crabs that the permit are eating. The olive and brown Bauer Crab as well as the Merkin are probably the two best flies for this environment.

           
If the permit does not like the taste of what it’s just sucked in, it will spit the object out immediately. For fly rodders, this means that your hands have to be free of sun-block and insect repellent when you’re tying a new fly on. Permit have such an acute sense of smell that they won’t go near a fly that has traces of either of these substances on it.
When permit come up onto the flats to feed, they will do so in singles, small groups and big schools. I’ve seen upwards of 70 permit in one school meticulously working a flat, their dorsal fins slashing from side to side in the sunlight. Permit will use their lips and mouth the same way a bonefish will to dislodge a crab or shrimp from its hiding place. But, unlike bonefish, permit do not create the big mud’s which are so common when a large school of bones are feeding. Small sand puffs and the odd sediment slick are tell-tale signs that it was a permit that’s passed through feeding and not bones. And make sure to never try to remove a fly with your fingers if the hook is down the fish’s throat. If its crushers can smash a conch shell into pieces, just imagine what they can do to the bones in your fingers! Pliers will easily get the fly out.   

The Influence of Tides

Understanding the role that the tides play on permit behavior and feeding is critical to catching them. The simple fact is that permit feed most aggressively when water is moving on the flat, both coming in and going out. Too many outdoor writers and journalists have been guilty of getting caught up in focusing exclusively on incoming tides, when writing about fly fishing for permit. This is akin to telling only half the story and leaving out some of the best parts. Permit are opportunists and they will never pass up an easy meal, regardless of what the tides are doing. However, when the water starts to move on the flat, either in or out, the feeding switch in the permits brain is turned on. Moving water is the key, more so than which way it’s going! Because of their unique shape, kind of like a big dinner plate turned sideways, permit have to wait longer on the incoming tide to get up onto the flats to feed. Rays, bonefish, barracudas, and sharks, will all arrive before the permit do. At this early stage of the incoming tide, permit can be found cruising the edges of flats and floating in near by channels. They just play a waiting game, passing time until the tides allow the fish to get high enough on the flat to feed.   
  

      

If I still have permit on the brain once the tide has fully gone out, which I usually do, I’ll poke around on some of the deeper water flats and nearby channels. Just because the tides are not optimal does not mean that you don’t have a chance to catch a permit. Successfully fly fishing for this wonderful adversary is all about maximizing your opportunities and being properly prepared. If you’re persistent, and don’t give in to the inevitable frustration, good things can happen when you least expect them to.

Water Temperatures and Permit

Permit are extremely sensitive to water temperature and it’s been my experience that they are reluctant to come up onto the flats to feed when the water temperature falls below 75 degrees. I have never seen a permit take a fly when the water temperature has fallen below this level and rarely, if ever, have I seen them on the flats during the occasional cold front that blows through the country during the winter months. If you are in the midst of your permit trip and one of these nasty little cold fronts blows through, there’s not a lot you can do. Tie some flies, have a few beers, and try and pick your guides brain as much as you possibly can. And maybe start thinking about booking your next trip down!
The optimal temperature for finding permit on the flats is between 80-87 degrees and I’ve had my greatest success in catching them when the water temperature has been stable for at least three days in the 82-85 degree range. Any temps above the high 80’s for more than a day or two and it seems to drive the permit into deeper water in much the same way that colder water does.

 Phases of the Moon and Your Permit Trip

If you’re thinking about a trip to Belize to fly fish for permit, you need to take into consideration the phases of the moon at the particular time of the year that you’re interested in coming for. Planning a trip where the bulk of your week runs right through a full moon phase should be avoided whenever possible. I’d suggest putting the trip off until you can come at a more favorable time. It’s that important! As a responsible outfitter, I’d rather lose out on your business for 6 months or a year, or until whenever you can come back, than have you come at a rotten time where you’re behind the 8-ball the minute you get here.

      

- Flats Species Information Pages -

Bonefish - pg 1, pg 2 , pg 3
Permit - pg 1, pg 2 , pg 3
Tarpon - pg 1, pg 2 , pg3

    

How Permit Feed

Permit have a unique set of powerful crusher plates located several inches down their throat, which are capable of crunching the hard shells of crabs, lobsters, and even small conch. When a permit encounters something it wants to eat on the bottom of a flat, like a crab, it will charge the crab, tip up with its head and mouth pointed in the direction of its prey, and then quickly inhale the crab with a deep sucking motion. A big permit can slurp a crab into its mouth from close to a foot away, with the residual water that comes in with the crab being flushed out through the permits’ gills, leaving the crab in the fishes’ mouth. The permits’ crusher plates in its throat then make quick work of the crab. This feeding action happens in the blink of an eye and even if you’re watching it happen, there’s a very good chance that you’ll miss it.

       

    

Knowing this, I always make sure that the guide I’m working the flats with is carrying a fly rod with a different type of fly than I normally use for tailing permit in skinny water. Having a second rod loaded with either an olive Bauer Mantis Shrimp or a Popovics Ultra Shrimp, rather than a traditional crab pattern, allows me to cast a more effective fly to a cruising or laid up fish, should the situation present itself. High tide does not signal the end of the permits feeding cycle. Far from it! In thinking about the 30 odd permit that I’ve landed on a fly rod, more than half of them were caught once the tide started to recede. In the same way that the incoming tide signals the permit to start feeding, the beginning of the falling tide signals that the permit has a limited time left to feed before it has to leave the flat. The first 1 1/2 hour of the falling tide is by far the most productive part of this stage of the tide, and as the tide continues its way out, anglers will see fewer and fewer permit.  

   

   

  

Fly fishing for permit it hard enough as it is! Permit will take advantage of the natural light generated by full moon conditions and will feed all night when there is sufficient light to do so. If they’ve been feeding at night, they will not feed as aggressively during the day, which makes them even harder to catch than they normally are. Permit that have been feeding all night for a couple of evenings consecutively, will sort of peck, scratch and scrabble around the flat during the daylight hours. In this situation, it becomes evident that feeding is not really a priority for them. What you want to do is plan your permit trip at a time when there will be little natural light caused by the moon. Booking your trip to coincide with going into and out of the new moon, when there is no moonlight, is generally the best time to pin point a perm it trip. However, this is not to suggest that permit cannot be caught at other times during the month or that there isn’t quality permit fishing available other than during the new moon phase. The first and third quarters can be a very productive and it’s interesting to note that the two largest permit I’ve taken on a fly were both taken at the back end of the third quarter, just two days before a full moon. All you really need to do is make sure that you avoid booking your trip during the 3 or 4 days leading into and out of the full moon phase. Please consult the Moon Phase Page of our web site to better help you plan the best dates for your trip. And please feel free to contact me at: rich@belizeflatsfishing.com - if you have any questions at all about the moon phases or tides.