Still better than work

When I arrived on Monday it was nice and hot with clear blue skies so I got rigged up with a blurple EP fly and walked over to the south side in the hope of a trevally. Unfortunately it was blowing a hoolie and the water was very churned up so rather than douring it out there, I jumped on a bike and went to the north shore. It took about 5 minutes to get a shot at a couple of trevally. The smaller of the 2 made it to the fly first, but that's fine it was good to get things going and it was a bigeye trevally which is a new species for me. Shortly after I caught a little brassy then started working my way along the flat next to a contour edge that fish often work along. I was basically just hoping to get some shots and get my eye in on spotting them, the right length of lead and that kind of thing before things got going in earnest. Then I saw a permit, 25 maybe 30 feet away causally working over a dark patch. The fish didn't seem to be going anywhere so I decided to get a crab on and see if I could get it. Well the fish contentedly worked that patch till I had almost tied on the crab before swimming off in the opposite direction.. Oh well. I kept the crab on because brassies and yellow spots, which are the main 2 species where I am, will gladly eat them. I caught another yellow spot then saw another pair of permit, they were kind of quartering away from me so it wasn't the best opportunity, but I put the crab in anyway. Too close. Even though it wasn't a great chance and an eat is never guaranteed, it was me that messed it up and guaranteed that the eat wouldn't happen. I didn't stay much longer as the light was starting to go, but was feeling encouraged and a bit surprised. before then I'd seen about 10 permit on this island on 12 trips. Then 3 of them in a couple of hours on Monday!

Tuesday was nice weather and because we're around the neap tide I thought I'd head to the north side again as both flats would be all day. the first flat was dead, nothing at all to be seen, except some mullet. The tide was still low so I got back on the bike and hit another flat to the east. Usually when one of them is dead, the other is fishy. Not so yesterday, the light was pretty good and there was nothing to see except one little black tip shark. After giving it a poke with the rod tip when it got too curious I decided to go back to the first flat in the hope that with a bit more warm water on it would turn it on. It didn't, the flat remained full of mullet and the tide was bringing in a lot of sargassum- which I suspect has something to do with the permit, you never used to see any of that here. I decided to hang around, this flat tends to fish best the couple of hours around high tide. After an hour or so I saw a couple of yellow spots, but the just tracked the fly back almost to the rod tip without eating. A little later another permit arrived! This time the cast was good just enough lead for the fly to get in front of him at the right depth, a slow draw and he tipped up to inspect the shrimp, another draw as he started to straighten up had him tipping and looking again, but he just wouldn't eat. After what felt like ages of inspection he just swam off. Disappointing, but that's permit for you.

Today was poor, the clouds really moved in and with low tide at 11, I decided to go and fish the surf area of the reef edge. I had about 90mins either side of the low, normally I'd prefer someone else to be there with me incase mistakes are made.. why drown alone when your pal can drown with you?
Anyway, I scuttled over the causeway with the 11 and a blurple EP fly, I hadn't been there more than 15 minutes when a pair of chunky bluefins came surfing in, the window effect of the waves made it pretty easy to see despite the bad light. A good shot was made and both fish turned to chase, I was sure one of them would eat, but no, and I don't know why, which is annoying. I was expecting good things after that, but saw nothing else until I had to go back to the inner reef.
I walked a section of that, and there may have been fish around but I just couldn't see in the bad light. I was really just hoping for a shallow tailing trigger. I did see one but spent about two minutes looking at it until I was convinced it was a bit of floating detritus, only to be disabused by it spooking when I started walking again. After that I went to fish the end of the flood on the north flat in the hope of seeing another permit, but it was just mullet today.

I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the days, cloud and rain is the forecast. I'm torn between just fishing the surf when I can and camping out on the north side hoping for that one cooperative permit. I'll see what I feel like in the morning.