PERMIT PROS

CATCHING ONE PERMIT IS HARD ENOUGH. HOW ABOUT SIX IN ONE DAY UNDER COMPETITION PRESSURE? THAT’S WHAT TEAMMATES JOSE UCAN BRICEÑO AND JUSTIN REA PULLED OFF EARLIER THIS YEAR AT THE MARCH MERKIN TOURNAMENT KEY WEST, FLORIDA.

Photos. John Wolstenholme, Ian Davis

It’s amazing how a proper hangover, a stomach bug and throwing up off someone’s boat can forge a friendship. That’s exactly how Justin

Rea, who guides out of the Florida Keys with Sting

Rea Charters (stingreacharters.com), and guide

Jose Ucan of Kay Fly Fishing Lodge (formerly La

Pescadora) in Punta Allen, Mexico, first connected.

Justin says, “I was fishing a Redbone (redbone.org) tournament in Mexico over ten years ago and was paired with Jose. I got really drunk the night before. It was a disaster. The next morning when I got in the shower, because I kind of didn’t know where I was, I frickin’ opened my mouth and I ended up getting Montezuma’s revenge. Halfway across the bay in his boat, I’m puking all over and Jose must have been thinking, “Who is this fucking gringo?’ Anyways, I ended up catching two permit that day and, as sick as I was throughout the tournament, I ended up winning it.” From that inauspicious start, their partnership has gone from strength to strength. Justin joins Jose in Punta Allen to teach permit schools every August, but it’s in the competition scene in the US and Mexico where they are making the biggest waves. A formidable team, with Justin on the pole and Jose on the bow, they have not only won prestigious tournaments like the Del Brown (delbrown. com) and most recently, the March Merkin (marchmerkin. com), but they have dominated. We spoke to them about their most recent record-breaking win in the March Merkin, their connection, and techniques for upping your permit game.

THE MARCH MERKIN

The Mission (TM): Right, so you caught seven permit in three days of competition at this year’s March Merkin including six fish on the final day. To put that in perspective for our readers, a total of 23 permit were caught between 24 boats. In 2021 only seven fish were caught between 25 boats. Tell us about your history as a team and how it all went down in this competition.

Justin Rea (JR): About three years ago I invited Jose to fish the Del Brown in Key West. A few people knew who he was, but we just smoked the competition. We caught six fish during that tournament. On the second day I think we caught four. We won the Del Brown, hands down and we’ve been fishing together ever since. We fished the Del Brown again the following year, caught seven fish and tied for first place with Will Benson, but he had one fish that was a little bit bigger than ours so he got first and we got second. That was an awesome tournament, because the last fish that Jose caught, we were getting off the edge of the flat and there were 30 seconds left to go on the clock. As I jumped down to put my push pole away, he cast out to reel in. As he’s reeling in, he hooked a permit. He’s like, “I got one.” I’m like, “Got what?” He says, “Palometa! Start the motor.” I say, “Bullshit, that’s a snapper.” We ended up hooking it three seconds before the buzzer went off, so it counted, and that was our seventh for the Del Brown.

When he came out this year for the March Merkin we went out pre-fishing the day before the tournament, which we don’t normally like to do, because if you catch one in pre-fishing, you have bad luck. Right? Well, we had two shots and he caught one. Damn! We went in, had lunch and just chilled. And of course, on day number one, we were getting lots of shots, but we were not feeding them, we didn’t catch and we started getting frustrated. On day two, we were getting more shots in. I don’t want to give a whole bunch of secrets away, but we unlocked a little bit of a code on day two. We only ended up catching one fish, but we saw the fish react to something we did and we capitalised on that the last day. Going into day three, somebody else already had three fish on the board and we only had the one, but we were convinced that we were going to do well. Jose Ucan (JU): At the tournament this year, we were

Jose down low with a comp-winning permit, Justin up top with the fist and flex.

lucky on the last day, because on the first day we had solid weather and we had a few shots. If we caught the first fish in the morning, then we’d crush it on those days. But if we didn’t – if we didn’t find fish or if I didn’t cast well or if something happened… This year was crazy, because we caught our first fish in the last minutes of the second day. On the last day, we arrived there around 8am and saw three or four fish tailing. One cast and we got that one. JR: Jose saw something off the right side of the boat. I stopped the boat, he jumped out and waded over. I looked and there were seven permit lined up. He made a perfect cash, came tight and caught one. It was 8:15am. Every time we’d done well that early in the morning, it had been a really good day. We kept going - whack, whack, whack, whack.

JU: That day we crushed it. We found big schools, a couple of small schools, a lot of singles too. It was just a great, great day. One of the best days I think for Justin and for me too.

JR: When we found fish Jose was just on fire. It potentially could have been a ten fish day, because he got his fly stolen once by a mutton snapper, once by a cuda and twice by yellow jacks. JU: I also had another big permit eat and then spit out the fly. JR: It was a crazy, I had two in the net at one time. Number five was in the net and Jose’s going, “Get rid of it, get rid of it! There’s a school coming!” I took the fly out and looked up and whaaam, he hooked up again. So I netted two and have a picture of him, holding both of them on the boat together. We broke two records. Nobody’s ever caught seven fish in the March Merkin and nobody’s ever caught six in any tournament in the Keys.

ANGLES AND TEAMWORK

TM: There are books, forums and entire schools of thought dedicated to permit and the intricacies of leading them vs casting as close to them as possible. What’s your take?

JU: You need to have a feel for those fish. Because some of them do not want to eat and you need to know how they eat. It depends on how they are coming. A fish can behave in three or four different ways. They can make nervous water, they can be tailing, or floating on the surface. How are they going to eat? A couple of those fish you need to hit on the head, some you need to throw far in front of them and others just three feet in front. You need to read those fish before you cast. JR: The angler really has to pay attention to the fish. You watch the fish come up and his body language tells you when he ate the fly. Every fish is different. If the fish are tailing, you want to put it in there close. If the fish are cruising, you can lead them and cross them a little bit, and then strip it by them. If the fish are floating, tailing on the surface, it’s a different presentation. Getting the right angle is very important. Ninety degrees is probably the last angle you can take. Really, you want them coming, moving towards the fly and the fly has got to be going away from them a little bit.

JU: When you are fishing for permit, it’s important that, before you can start talking about “three o’clock” or “sixty feet”, the angler needs to see the fish. It helps a lot, because if you start shouting and he doesn’t see it, you don’t have it.

JR: You’ve got to have good eyes. You’ve got to see them. It’s better if you see them before the guide does so always pay attention, be on the lookout all the time. If you don’t know where to look, ask the guide what side of the bank is he going to come on? Is he going to come on the right or the left? Usually the guide will put the boat on one side and be looking for him in a direction where the angler can make a good cast. Ask the guide questions if you have to. JU: The angler and guide need to work together. I’ve been fishing with Justin a long time and I know how he’s calling it. I know he sees the fish really well and he knows how I fit in. It’s not just me or just Justin. We are a really good team now. We have an understanding. JR: I just tell him he can’t have a beer until he catches a fish.

MEXICO VS THE KEYS…AND FLY CHOICE

How different is the permit fishing between the Keys and Mexico? Does that affect your choice of fly in tournaments?

JU: In Mexico we have big schools, in the Keys there are a lot of singles. We don’t have that many tailing fish. From July to October, we have tailing fish. The rest of the year, it’s mostly schools. It can be shallow too, but they don’t tail like on the Keys. On the Keys they’re tailing every day and you can see it. Over here, sometimes you’re fishing in onetwo feet of water and those permit aren’t tailing or eating. I don’t know why. On the Keys you see a lot of tailing. It’s a little harder because you have to cast right close to the fish and strip differently. Here you’re stripping fast. JR: There are a lot of similarities. Our fish in the Keys tend to be found in ones and twos, whereas Jose’s got more schools of fish floating around up top. He just knows how to read all the fish.

JU: For me fly choice really depends on the current. We don’t have big tides, like the Keys. I use a lot of shrimp patterns over here, because a lot of our customers, they don’t know how to set. Some of our customers are just stripping the fly and the permit hooks itself. They don’t need to set it because it’s moving fast. On the Keys you need to move it slowly. They use a lot of crabs. Justin is the first guy I saw using shrimps over there. I don’t know if it depends on the tide. In Mexico it depends on the tide and the moon. For me the moon is really important. You need to strip really slowly when it’s full moon and you can use a crab, but when it’s a dark moon, you need to move your fly. JR: We don’t talk about flies very much. In the tournament guys will hide their fly when they come into the dock. Our flies have always changed. Every tournament, I think I’ve used a different fly, or a different variation of something. JU: This year we used something really different that I had never seen over there before.

JR: Really, in the long sense of everything, it’s not the arrow. It’s the Indian.”

RELAX, IT’S JUST ANOTHER TARGET

TM: Do people freak out too much about permit?

JR: Of course, yeah. Anglers will cast a hundred times before they catch a permit, so when they get a shot they, rightfully, get all jacked up and forget how to cast. They get it into their heads that, ‘Oh my God, it’s such a special fish. I got to catch it. I got to catch it.’ But you’ve just got to treat it like another target, and not freak out. Relax and just throw at it like any other target, but throw better. When you’ve got that jacked-up feeling, peoples’ casts just go to shit. I tell them that it’s just another Jack Cravelle, a fancy Jack, and then they’ll make a killer cast. JU: Those clients hook a Jack and land a permit.

Jose Ucan with his son Parker and a fine permit, while in the background the Don Juan of permits watches.

SHOP THE MISSION

Jose and Justin’s go-to tackle for pin-point permit presentation. Rod: 8 or 9-weight Thomas & Thomas Sextant, thomasandthomas.com

Reel: Hatch 7 Plus, hatchoutdoors.com

Line: Scientific Anglers Amplitude Smooth Infinity Salt, scientificanglers.com

Leader: “We use an all fluorocarbon leader, tippeted down to 16lbs.”