# The big 3. Most difficult to catch on fly?



## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

Bonefish
Permit
Tarpon - above 50lbs

What’s everyone’s a opinion on this? This includes the hunt for the fish, getting them to eat and then landing.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

I've not yet had a chance to pursue permit, but I can tell you that Tampa redfish are significantly harder to catch than Hawaiian bonefish.

Tarpon = Punishment


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

Permit!


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

crboggs said:


> I've not yet had a chance to pursue permit, but I can tell you that Tampa redfish are significantly harder to catch than Hawaiian bonefish.
> 
> Tarpon = Punishment


None as difficult as a Tampa Permit on fly on the flat! Almost an impossible feat.


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## BM_Barrelcooker (May 4, 2011)

Musky
Longnose gar
Carp


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## RunningOnEmpty (Jun 20, 2015)

Mullet LOL


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## el9surf (Dec 23, 2008)

I have caught tarpon and bones, only a few shots at permit that didn't connect. The big oceanside keys tarpon can be infuriating. Punishment is a good way to describe them.


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## Rick hambric (Jun 24, 2017)

Sheeps in clear calm water, perms anywhere on earth, & bones.


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## Cronced (Nov 18, 2016)

I would have to say tarpon simply because most people talk about how many fish they "catch" and how many tarpon they "jump". And we all know a jumped tarpon is one that you hooked and made your fish fighting skills look stupid somewhere in the first ten seconds.


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## EasternGlow (Nov 6, 2015)

Just got back from a day trip to the keys chasing tarpon.......... tarpon.


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## ifsteve (Jul 1, 2010)

Permit. And its not close.


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## bananabob (Jun 3, 2015)

It's pretty easy to catch seatrout until sight fishing for _true_ gators over 28". Those big girls are very hard to fool. Never had the chance to go for the fickle permit yet.


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## crc01 (Oct 28, 2016)

You pretty much have to be a masochist to focus on permit.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

crc01 said:


> You pretty much have to be a masochist to focus on permit.


You gotta be a little bit of a masochist to pick up the fly rod in the first place.


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

Cronced said:


> I would have to say tarpon simply because most people talk about how many fish they "catch" and how many tarpon they "jump". And we all know a jumped tarpon is one that you hooked and made your fish fighting skills look stupid somewhere in the first ten seconds.


It's all a matter of how you feed it, what fly in what conditions, what hook you use on the fly, your rigging, drag setting, how you set the hook, "how" you bow when they jump (not just bow), how to apply more or less pressure and when to do it, and what you do when the fish is at the boat. Also how to land it. S%#t, I guess it's the whole process!


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

to add to the list....

Single mullet.
Single sheephead on a shallow flat in gin clear water.
Single laid up mammoth snook in gin clear skinny water. %#&~|*@%## 

Oh crap, I forgot one more.... Gulf coast gator trout on fly over 30". That is my unicorn fish. I just can't seem to make it happen. Lost 1 on spinning 20yrs ago. Lost one on spinning about a month ago and had her in my hands 6 times before she thru the jig back at me. Landed 1 on ultra light spinning about 16yrs ago, took some nice pics, along with my buddies 20lb snook that he got in the same spot at the same time (doubled up on monsters). He dropped the camera in the water.....


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

Backwater said:


> Single laid up mammoth snook in gin clear skinny water. %#&~|*@%##


Those bastards are the absolute worst...


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

crboggs said:


> Those bastards are the absolute worst...


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## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

crboggs said:


> Those bastards are the absolute worst...


Three legged crab always does the trick on those bastards


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## johnmauser (Sep 9, 2009)

In my world:

Permit
Sheepshead on the flats
Alligator Gar


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## Cronced (Nov 18, 2016)

Backwater said:


> He dropped the camera in the water.....


Sure he did...


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## rakeel (Apr 9, 2014)

For the original question. Of the big 3 the hardest to get to feed has got to be permit on the flats. Hardest to land, tarpon. Hardest overall, probably permit. 

For my normal Texas fish. It would go

1.) Sheepshead on the flats - They're skittish little crackheads in shallow water and inspect the living hell out of a fly. It also can be challenging to bury a hook really good in that mouth of theirs

2.)Tarpon - It's still a tarpon, but we add the challenge of finding them with any regularity

3.)Smallmouth buffalo - These fat little bastards have a feeding window about the size of a silver dollar and that's really no exaggeration. They can also be super picky as to what they eat during what time of year and what body of water they're in. Only reason I put them at number 3 is they don't have the challenge of being overly skittish. You can usually get 2 or 3 casts to them before they spook.


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

Backwater said:


> He dropped the camera in the water.....





Cronced said:


> Sure he did...


Wait....what? 

That was the short version. You don't want to hear the long version and I'm sure you wouldn't believe that one, even less. But PM me and I'll give you his ph # and you can ask him yourself.


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## Cronced (Nov 18, 2016)

Backwater said:


> Wait....what?
> 
> That was the short version. You don't want to hear the long version and I'm sure you wouldn't believe that one, even less. But PM me and I'll give you his ph # and you can ask him yourself.


I actually do believe you and I was just messing around. I know how it goes! It's too bad that in the facebook/instagram/whatever age we live in, nothing happens unless you have a picture of it.


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

Cronced said:


> I actually do believe you and I was just messing around. I know how it goes! It's too bad that in the facebook/instagram/whatever age we live in, nothing happens unless you have a picture of it.


So true. I also had a hard drive that crashed years ago with a lot of my pics on it. I lost some good stuff there. Pays to backup these days. Back when I was younger, I never took a camera with me. Never thought it was that big of a deal.


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## Sabalon (Aug 16, 2016)

Permit for me. I still don’t have one.

Then tarpon and then bones.


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## mightyrime (Jul 18, 2016)

of trips i have taken where people catch permit they focus only on permit and no other specie. For example I went to Belieze with a group of 5 and only 1 guy caught permit. He was willing to sit in one or two areas all day where the guide new permit would swim buy maybe twice a day. He was successful in catching permit, he actually caught 2 but he missed out on seeing multiple beautiful flats and missed some of the point of travel.

If you want permit you have to go all in.

Bonefish can be tough, but can also be real easy.

Tarpon in Florida in my experience are very tough. Tarpon in other parts of the wold are much easier to catch.

My current super hard fish to catch is called a Corbina. Its like a redfish / bonefish / croaker hybrid that live in the surf wash here in california. You only have maybe a 2 second window to get a sandcrab fly in front of them and they eat it maybe 5% of the time.

I would also add big Roosterfish from the beach as an incredibly hard fish to catch.


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## Bonecracker (Mar 29, 2007)

1. Permit
2. Permit
3. Sheepshead


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## Bonecracker (Mar 29, 2007)

Backwater said:


> to add to the list....
> 
> Single mullet.
> Single sheephead on a shallow flat in gin clear water.
> ...


Ted that reminds me of a funny story! I was down in Marathon fishing a tarpon tournament back in the early 90's and after having a good day on the water I asked our guide at the dock where can we go wade for bonefish this afternoon as I brought a couple of lite spinners to play with. He tells us to go to mile marker such and such, make a right & follow the dirt road till it ends and start wading. It was a pretty basin with lots of sea grass and teaming with sea life. My buddy and I split up and start working across this flat and sometimes the bottom was hard and sometimes we sunk up to our knees with little to show for our efforts.

After 2 hours or so I have seen nothing but baitfish and the occasional small cudda and I look over at my buddy (300+ yards away) and he is doing the same as me, NOTHING! It's getting late & I motion to him to go back and he does not see me so I start working my way back and like out of a dream, tails start popping up everywhere like magic. It was not one or two tails, it was a damn sea of tails!! Being the expert fisherman (BS talkin here!) I work my way up to the first reachable group and cast my light 7ft spinnin rod with a Diawa SS1300 loaded with 200+yds of 6lb test. I make a perfect cast and the jigs lands in the grass bout 2 ft from the bonefish and he acts interested and moves in the jigs direction. I try to move the jig in the grass and nothing as I was caught up in the grass. I wait for the fish to move off and all I drag back is a wad of seagrass and I was not a happy camper. I spotted a few more tails about 60 yds away and this time I was going to get closer and try to hit them on the head with the jig. Great cast but I hit the fish on the head and it spooked!! Started working my way back to the truck and I see a big ole tail sticking up again and I make a good long cast and the fish chases the jig but again it gets lost in the grass and he cannot find his special treat and all I have to show for my efforts were big clumps of seagrass on my bonefish jig! At this point I am very frustrated and reach into my small box of jigs and grab the lightest one in the box (1/8oz) with what looks like brown squirrel hairs tied for a tail with a small mono weed guard. You know this may work!!

After wading awhile the truck is in sight, my buddy is headed my way, and my sea of tails has greatly diminished and I am disappointed! When I am bout 100yds from shore I see a big tail pop up I make a good long cast with the light jig and the big tail starts quivering. I bump the jig once, then twice, and damn I am stuck in the grass again!! At this point I am totally pissed and start pulling on the jig out of frustration but there was something different as I pulled on my big clump of grass, there was a bonefish attached. He takes off doing 90 to nothing and I am starting to think he may spool me at 150yds as I clumsily stumble along on foot in the seagrass. We play cat and mouse for a while and finally after 15 min I land my first really big bonefish (ever) which is easily over 12lbs. My buddy saw all the commotion and comes over to watch the fight and whips out his cheap Kodak Instamatic camera for pictures. I land the fish, remove the jig, and I am the happiest person in the world and we got a lot of good pictures. I asked him if he saw any bonefish and he replies "NO"! What?? I am just dumb founded as they were all over the place!

The next morning I thanked my guide from yesterday and shook his hand telling him the story about the bonefish I had caught! The final day we fished with another guide with a peace of crap old Hewes that would hardly crank. Wind and weather was much worse than the past few days and we took quite a few waves over the bow trying to anchor up and on the ocean side of Islamorada! Our Crappy day ended with little to show for our efforts and I was very pissed to see all of our bags/gear in his dry hatch were soaked to the bone!! I asked my buddy if the camera was in there and he nodded his head yes! It was at that moment I had the sinking feeling we had lost our pictures and our suspicions were confirmed two days later back in ATL. I still cringe thinking about my big old bonefish and tarpon pictures that disappeared from that trip as we put some fish in the boat!


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

Bonecracker said:


> Ted that reminds me of a funny story! I was down in Marathon fishing a tarpon tournament back in the early 90's and after having a good day on the water I asked our guide at the dock where can we go wade for bonefish this afternoon as I brought a couple of lite spinners to play with. He tells us to go to mile marker such and such, make a right & follow the dirt road till it ends and start wading. It was a pretty basin with lots of sea grass and teaming with sea life. My buddy and I split up and start working across this flat and sometimes the bottom was hard and sometimes we sunk up to our knees with little to show for our efforts.
> 
> After 2 hours or so I have seen nothing but baitfish and the occasional small cudda and I look over at my buddy (300+ yards away) and he is doing the same as me, NOTHING! It's getting late & I motion to him to go back and he does not see me so I start working my way back and like out of a dream, tails start popping up everywhere like magic. It was not one or two tails, it was a damn sea of tails!! Being the expert fisherman (BS talkin here!) I work my way up to the first reachable group and cast my light 7ft spinnin rod with a Diawa SS1300 loaded with 200+yds of 6lb test. I make a perfect cast and the jigs lands in the grass bout 2 ft from the bonefish and he acts interested and moves in the jigs direction. I try to move the jig in the grass and nothing as I was caught up in the grass. I wait for the fish to move off and all I drag back is a wad of seagrass and I was not a happy camper. I spotted a few more tails about 60 yds away and this time I was going to get closer and try to hit them on the head with the jig. Great cast but I hit the fish and the head and it spooked!! Started working my way back to the truck and I see a big ole tail sticking up again and I make a good long cast and the fish chases the jig but again it gets lost in the grass and he cannot find his special treat and all I have to show for my efforts were big clumps of seagrass on my bonefish jig! At this point I am very frustrated and reach into my small box of jigs and grab the lightest one in the box (1/8oz) with what looks like brown squirrel hairs tied for a tail with a small mono weed guard. You know this may work!!
> 
> ...


Great Story. Thanks for taking the time to be so detailed. You drew me in right there with you. Awesome fish!! Dbl digit bones have dodged me all my life and they are still on my bucket list, especially on fly. That sucks about the camera. But.... you still have the story and the memory of it. Would have been nice to have the pics, but oh well. When my computer dumped, I lost the pics of my biggest poons on fly. But I'm going to try to make up for it this year.


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## K3anderson (Jan 23, 2013)

Tarpon at least eat. A snook, sight fished in clear water, off a skiff is crazy spooky. And Tampa redfish, again sight fished, not blind casting in deep water or dock lights, is a super tough fish to catch. There's just a lot more of them so you end up with more shots to blow.


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## RJTaylor (Oct 4, 2017)

Permit.

I caught 2 back to back in Mexico, but spent several trips before that getting my *** handed to me.


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## Cronced (Nov 18, 2016)

Without a doubt the most frustrated I have ever been while fly fishing was for carp on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. Right near TMI (Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, the one that melted down in '78) there is a big, wide, mud flat that, at usual summertime levels, is a few miles of knee deep water with grass islands scattered around. Carp love it, and the wade and stalk fishing is pretty cool.

These fish as spooky as all get out. If the wake from wading goes over a tailing fish, it's gone. If a false cast goes over a fish you don't see, it's gone. If the shadow of a plane taking off or landing from the nearby airport goes over them, they're gone.

Casts have to be perfect and your fly, a Clouser crayfish, has to settle to the bottom and lie motionless until a fish gets within inches. Then you have to jiggle the fly just enough to get its attention, but not so much that it spooks them. 

Just thinking about it makes me frustrated.


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## Brett (Jul 16, 2008)

Parrot fish
Trumpet fish
Trunk fish

The others are active predators and at least I had a chance, but those three, it never happened.


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## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

Tarpon
permit
Grass Carp


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## Sabalon (Aug 16, 2016)

permitchaser said:


> Tampon
> permit
> Grass Carp


You’re fishing the right spot, but the wrong moon.


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## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

Sabalon said:


> You’re fishing the right spot, but the wrong moon.


So I guess your talking about Tarpon. I'm going back this year so what moon. I know there were a lot one day and the next nothing


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## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

permitchaser said:


> Tampon
> permit
> Grass Carp





Sabalon said:


> You’re fishing the right spot, but the wrong moon.


It’s all in the way you wiggle your ballyhoo


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## Sabalon (Aug 16, 2016)

permitchaser said:


> So I guess your talking about Tarpon. I'm going back this year so what moon. I know there were a lot one day and the next nothing


I apologize. Was making a middle school joke.


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## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

Sabalon said:


> I apologize. Was making a middle school joke.


no problem....


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## reallyshallow (May 19, 2010)

Permit, with out question.


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## brokeoff (Sep 2, 2016)

Just got back from my first trip to the tropics. Went permit fishing for five days in Belize. Tough game. That’s the only fish I went for, so my highly unqualified vote is for permit.


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

permitchaser said:


> Tampon


Yeah, they're illusive little buggars!!! Tough to find when their laid up. Not even on a full moon! I'm just not into poking around until I find them.


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

K3anderson said:


> Tarpon at least eat.


Wait....what? That easy huh?

Snook just needs a lil persuasion.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

Backwater said:


> Snook just needs a lil persuasion.


Was on foot during a paddle event on Sat. Found a nice slot snook pushing around a shore line...got in front of him, laid the fly into his path, waited...waited...waited, twitched the fly, snook turned on it and started tracking, twitched the fly, snook pushed right up on top of the fly, fought the "let it sit or move it again?" mental battle...slooooooowly crawled the fly about an inch...snook turned and swam away...

F'ng snook.


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## mwolaver (Feb 6, 2014)

...slooooooowly crawled the fly about an inch...snook turned and swam away...

Snook no eat a slowed down fly...ask me how I know.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

*lol* Yeah. I had a crabby redfish fly tied on and I didn't think it would look right to make it flee.

The irony is that 90 seconds later, as I was switching flies to tie on a bait fish pattern, a nice red swam right up to my feet and eyeballed me before swimming past. All I had for him were harsh words and a fly box in my hands...


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

crboggs said:


> Was on foot during a paddle event on Sat. Found a nice slot snook pushing around a shore line...got in front of him, laid the fly into his path, waited...waited...waited, twitched the fly, snook turned on it and started tracking, twitched the fly, snook pushed right up on top of the fly, fought the "let it sit or move it again?" mental battle...slooooooowly crawled the fly about an inch...snook turned and swam away...
> 
> F'ng snook.





mwolaver said:


> ...slooooooowly crawled the fly about an inch...snook turned and swam away...
> 
> Snook no eat a slowed down fly...ask me how I know.


Laid up snook are like laid up cats. The older they get, the less interested and bored they get with something that doesn't look appetizing and also entertaining. So the shallower and clearer the water is, the more you have to go more natural, but very sparse and just show them a hint that there is something there, without showing them the whole enchilada. Just a whisper of a bait pattern that something may be there or not, that still pushes some water to get their attention. It also has to fall within the bait that they are focusing on in that paticular area at that particular time of year. So don't show them a shrimp pattern when the bait is in and don't who them a whitebait pattern when they shouldn't be around.

My cat is one of those... "been there, done that" kind of cat, the older he gets. He's caught just about anything he could wrap his claws around. He's the king and of course, everyone else are just mere subjects. Lol. That being said, If I throw a hookless fly out in front of him and just let it sit, he'll be bored and just look it or look the other way. If I twitch it some, he may notice and even come and take a look, but will either lay back down or walk away. But if I bump it and that starts him to move closer, I'll start to take it away and the more he moves towards it, the more I'll move it away. The faster he approaches, the faster I'll pick up the tempo and make it run faster than he's coming. The end results is it clicks from a curiosity or feeding instinct to a reaction instinct, which will cause all his inhibitions to drop and will trigger it to lunge at it.

In deeper, darker water, things change.

Ted Haas


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## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

So since I have posted this thread in April I’ve knocked Bonefish and Tarpon off the list. No doubt bonefish are the easiest. I’ve seen permit but never when I was on the pointy end. Definitely the hardest to find.
Permit
Tarpon
Bonefish


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## mro (Jan 24, 2018)

crboggs said:


> All I had for him were harsh words and a fly box in my hands...


been there... 

Winter Snook 
Just south of Clearwater Pass I ran across the largest Snook I ever saw. Had to be 40 pounds. Was in 4 feet of water and just totally ignored me. I was throwing a deceiver. Cast was an easy 30 feet, Placed the fly about 5 feet in font of her and let it sink. First cast I retrieved the fly when it was about a foot above the fish. It did not even flinch as the fly passed right above her head. It took me 3 more casts to annoy it enough that she just slowly turned away and faded into deeper water.


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## Boneheaded (Oct 4, 2017)

Mutton snapper.


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## flatzcrazy (Feb 5, 2013)

crboggs said:


> You gotta be a little bit of a masochist to pick up the fly rod in the first place.


What he said!!!


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## State fish rob (Jan 25, 2017)

bananabob said:


> It's pretty easy to catch seatrout until sight fishing for _true_ gators over 28". Those big girls are very hard to fool. Never had the chance to go for the fickle permit yet.


Ditto


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## 8w8n8 (Sep 30, 2017)

… 1) Permit
… 2) Snook
...3) Oceanside Tarpon

… took me 2 trips to Belize and one to Mexico before I caught my first permit … expensive, but worth it … the flagellant sumb****es … although I've caught more permit than snook, the number of casts per fish is by far in favor of Mr. Palometa … and I've come to the conclusion that oceanside Tarpon just don't like me ...


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## dbrady784 (Feb 17, 2014)

1. Any species within 100yds of active jetskiers
2. Any species on the sandbar memorial day weekend
3. redfish on a cool november morning in TX avoiding the steel raining down from the marsh sky


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## Canebrake51 (Feb 15, 2018)

1. Snook in gin clear water
2. Permit
3. Tarpon
My only experience with these species has been fly fishing and I’ve caught all three but those big snook can really make me want to pull my hair out. They follow the fly almost right to the tip-top guide and then keep following as you move the rod tip and then don’t eat.


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## backbone (Jan 4, 2016)

Big snook are my Achilles heel! 
Follow, follow, middle finger....


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## SomaliPirate (Feb 5, 2016)

I vote for sheepies and black drum. I can't get those bastards to eat a fly.


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## ifsteve (Jul 1, 2010)

SomaliPirate said:


> I vote for sheepies and black drum. I can't get those bastards to eat a fly.


They don't call sheepies cajun permit for nohting. But black drum? Ezy pzy.


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## Canebrake51 (Feb 15, 2018)

With you on black drum. Those nasty, ugly things won’t eat a fly for me. Don’t know why I still try.


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## SomaliPirate (Feb 5, 2016)

ifsteve said:


> They don't call sheepies cajun permit for nohting. But black drum? Ezy pzy.


I have cast at those big ugly bastards until I'm blue in the face. I've gotten a few looks, but never an eat. I had a blast though when a 3' bonnethead rushed up and snatched my fly almost from on top of a drum's face.


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

backbone said:


> Big snook are my Achilles heel!
> Follow, follow, middle finger....


Me too. 

I lost the biggest snook of my dreams one night (on any type of rod) and happened to eat my fly when I was night tarpon fly fishing. I thought it was a tarpon at first until I seen her roll on her side like a brown trout rolling on a dry fly and I saw that thick black stripe as she slurped down my big ugly tarpon fly. She schooled me on who was tougher, me with my 12wt with a high output TM, or that ole girl that knew were every place to cut you off was located. I rarely ever seen so much force on a fly rod as she put on me. She kicked my a _ _! 

Keeps me chasing the dream tho!


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## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

Finally knocked permit off the list after a lot of trying so:
Permit
Tarpon
.
.
.
.
.
.
Bonefish


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## eightwt (May 11, 2017)

ifsteve said:


> But black drum? Ezy pzy.


How?


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## trekker (Sep 19, 2015)

Musky
Musky
Musky


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## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

I forgot GTs. Not cause their hard to catch, it's just hard to get where they live


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## Shallow Expectations (Jun 11, 2019)

Swordfish - Have heard of some people trying it but failing. Was told some have accomplished it. Seems very difficult to tease them up them present a fly to them. I'm sure they are no picnic if you hook a decent size one either.


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## Henry Lee Fowler IV (Jan 11, 2017)

Grass carp
permit
Common carp


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## texasag07 (Nov 11, 2014)

I still maintain if you have to tease or chum it doesn’t count.


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## Scott Kor (Feb 3, 2019)

Backwater said:


> Permit!


I second, third of forth this. Permit!

Caught bones, and big tarpon on my first attempt way back when. (and have also caught sheepshead, gator trout, snook, grass carp, gar etc not mullet, but haven't cared enough to try )

Permit? Still trying. Not only are they hard to fool, they aren't as accessible. It's pretty much the keys or a different country if you want to catch them shallow. Bones are tough that way too, but I seem to know more flats that hold them. Permit also seem to be harder to land than bones. But then I wouldn't know.


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## Sardina (Feb 16, 2019)

Permit
Milkfish
Roosters from the beach


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## not2shabby (Sep 14, 2016)

eightwt said:


> How?


Black drum aren't bad. I like a small, neutral colored fly. Shrimp, clouser, crab, or crack-type. Small and neutral is the key though. Strips need to be very short. Grab a ruler and think about stripping 1-2" of line. It's short and it's barely moving, but keep it moving. 1 strip per second (1-2" per second...one-one-thousand...two-one-thousand...). This is obviously a lot easier wading than standing on a skiff. 

I recently learned a little trick for these not-so-aggressive eaters that has improved my hookups. When you think they've eaten, slowly lift your rod tip to change the angle of the strip set. A straight strip set on a drum often pulls the fly out of their mouth. Not sure why. Maybe they don't close their mouth quickly after eating? Who knows? If you slowly lift and then strip set when you feel a little weight, your hookup ratio will improve.

Don't get me wrong. They're not the easiest fish you'll run into, but they can be a lot of fun when there's nothing else around to play with. Most folks are stripping too much line too fast for black drum or using flashy flies. They might be related to redfish, but you have to change your tactics and mindset completely. I have only ever had one black drum explode on a fly like a redfish. Caught me so unprepared that I didn't come anywhere close to striking at the right time.

Summer evenings in the Laguna Madre can be spectacular for black drum. I've seen hundreds of them on sand in 90-degree water. Tails for a hundred yards. You might have to present to a handful for a hookup, but it's great practice and a helluva lot of fun.


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## SomaliPirate (Feb 5, 2016)

not2shabby said:


> Black drum aren't bad. I like a small, neutral colored fly. Shrimp, clouser, crab, or crack-type. Small and neutral is the key though. Strips need to be very short. Grab a ruler and think about stripping 1-2" of line. It's short and it's barely moving, but keep it moving. 1 strip per second (1-2" per second...one-one-thousand...two-one-thousand...). This is obviously a lot easier wading than standing on a skiff.
> 
> I recently learned a little trick for these not-so-aggressive eaters that has improved my hookups. When you think they've eaten, slowly lift your rod tip to change the angle of the strip set. A straight strip set on a drum often pulls the fly out of their mouth. Not sure why. Maybe they don't close their mouth quickly after eating? Who knows? If you slowly lift and then strip set when you feel a little weight, your hookup ratio will improve.
> 
> ...


Are you letting the fly sit on bottom and stripping it? What about placement? Put it right on their nose? I've been at this with the same school of fish for almost three damn years and it's driving me nuts.


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## not2shabby (Sep 14, 2016)

SomaliPirate said:


> Are you letting the fly sit on bottom and stripping it? What about placement? Put it right on their nose? I've been at this with the same school of fish for almost three damn years and it's driving me nuts.


Yes. Fly on the bottom. I like bead-chain eyes so it has some weight, but it doesn't come crashing out of the sky like a big dumbbell. I like the fly to land a foot in front and 2-3ft past. Let it settle and then short strips to work it across their noses. 

In really shallow water, I will throw an unweighted seaducer in white, tan, or brown.


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## Lee Singleton (Jul 3, 2018)

sjrobin said:


> A true statement. Sight casted sheepshead and large female sea trout in clear water. I have never casted at permit.


a flood tide sheepshead is tough too. I had an afternoon where i saw 15 sheepshead tailing in the grass and couldn't get one to eat.


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## LowTideFly (Apr 8, 2016)

1. Permit
2. Bones
3. Tarpon

Bones and Tarpon can switch order depending on the day


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## coconutgroves (Sep 23, 2013)

If you want to catch fish, go for bones.
If you want to test your angling and endurance skills, go for tarpon
If you want to pull your hair out and drown your sorrows each night, go for permit.

I've fished a lot for all three. Bones are dependable, but still a challenge.

No tarpon I've caught ever fought the same. And the eat can be unpredictable as well. They may slash at it, charge at it, or may even follow closely where you have to slow the fly and twitch it for an eat.

Permit on the other hand - you can do everything thing right, I mean every damn thing right and that fish just ignores the fly. At least tarpon see it - you will swear permit ignore you. But when it is on, you will know it. Their bodies just move differently - in shallow water you can see them wiggle towards the fly - that is a happy fish that is gonna eat. But if I want to catch fish, it is not the fish I go for.

I love reds, but the fight is usually the same. The eat is fun with reds though. But if I could only choose one, it is tarpon hands down. Nothing beats chasing them, feeding them, and then seeing what controlled chaos happens next!


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## matauman (Nov 4, 2014)

1. Permit
2. Henry's fork trout
Just back and still can't sleep without nightmares of watching them rise after my fly goes by.

Plan to chase bones for a week as therapy... with daily treatments of local rum.


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

The guy who said "mutton snapper" gets my vote... A mutton on the flats was the ultimate years ago.... You don't see them much any more - but here's the drill... 

Up on big Keys ocean side flats.... mutton snappers - big ones, used to follow rays on a falling tide - staying back a bit. All you ever saw was a hint of pink back there. Very, very tough fish to stalk and feed - then the beastie is a single minded streak if you hook one, heading for the nearest channel where it will cut you off of the first thing it can find... 

I was introduced to Ralph Delph out on the water in the late seventies down at Key West by a guy I was fishing with who knew him (and I'm sure we messed up his action by idling up to him in about four feet of water... ). Back then he guided out of a 20' SeaCraft, bright yellow, with the name Vitamin Sea on it... He was staked up waiting for big rays to come by - all the way down by Boca Grande Key (the last key before the run out to the Marquesas..) in that big SeaCraft.... You had to really know your tides and flats to even have a hint where the rays might have muttons following and that was just a hint of what I'd need to learn if I wanted to hunt them myself in my own small flats skiff, much closer to Miami.

I never saw many of them myself and always thought of them as my unicorn flats fish... and never even hooked one... Knowing that these days most have never seen a big mutton snapper up on the flats -and probably never will makes them something to dream about. I did go on to learn how to catch them next to the bonefish flats (and my biggest was more than seventeen pounds ) but always using bait in April - never any other time of the year. I imagine they're still around then but haven't gone after one in years and years.... When they're in the channels almost every one we hooked came with a big bull shark right behind it. I guess they like muttons as well...


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## Canebrake51 (Feb 15, 2018)

lemaymiami said:


> The guy who said "mutton snapper" gets my vote... A mutton on the flats was the ultimate years ago.... You don't see them much any more - but here's the drill...
> 
> Up on big Keys ocean side flats.... mutton snappers - big ones, used to follow rays on a falling tide - staying back a bit. All you ever saw was a hint of pink back there. Very, very tough fish to stalk and feed - then the beastie is a single minded streak if you hook one, heading for the nearest channel where it will cut you off of the first thing it can find...
> 
> ...


Just returned from Belize where weather conditions made sight fishing difficult(combination of strong wind and high cloud cover so blinding glare) but managed to hook a tiny mutton snapper. The little guy acted like a much bigger fish on my permit fly. Such a pretty little fish.


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## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

I catch little mutton almost every time I fly fish Biscayne Bay. Never a keeper but I do catch plenty of them. Pretty fish on the flats.


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## Tailer (Jan 10, 2017)

lemaymiami said:


> The guy who said "mutton snapper" gets my vote... A mutton on the flats was the ultimate years ago.... You don't see them much any more - but here's the drill...


The Mutton is my unicorn as well. Last one I hooked was about 10#; pulled it off the back of a nurse shark just off Curtis many moons ago (I'll have to check my journal to see if it was in April, I know it was early tarpon season).


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## hlane09 (Apr 1, 2019)

1. Permit
2. Musky
3. Steelhead


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## Tx_Whipray (Sep 4, 2015)

coconutgroves said:


> If you want to catch fish, go for bones.
> If you want to test your angling and endurance skills, go for tarpon
> If you want to pull your hair out and drown your sorrows each night, go for permit.
> 
> ...


Or the runt bonefish swimming with it beats it to the fly....sigh.


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## coconutgroves (Sep 23, 2013)

sjrobin said:


> The black drum have to be in the mood, but they will swim for a fly at times. We usually feed black drum dark flies with lead eyes to keep the fly down on bottom. Black, purple, and plum. In the summer I will have one fly rod with a black drum fly ready to go for drum.


I've learned that black drums like smaller flies fished with a very slow strip, almost tailing permit like slow. They will key in pretty quick like this and of course taste really good later that day.  There are spots on the TX coast loaded with them where taking them is needed to balance the environment. They will mud up an entire area of flat and screw up the reds in that area.


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

We catch and release big black drum every summer on flies. I was very frustrated by them for years until we figured out that we needed very large black flies for them... These are breeding size blacks, 20 to 40 lbs up inside small rivers where big tarpon are also holding. Each one is carefully released unharmed as well...

I’ll have to check my desktop for a photo or two...

Here we go....


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## NMZ Charters (Feb 7, 2019)

Carp, sheeps, gator trout


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## John Killinger (May 26, 2018)

Permit
Musky
Carp


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## efi2712micro (Sep 17, 2015)

Mullet not that hard


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## topnative2 (Feb 22, 2009)

mako
grouper
swordfish


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## Megalops (Oct 23, 2011)

efi2712micro said:


> Mullet not that hard


Nice!


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## Micro Thinfisher (Jan 27, 2018)

1st Permit, hands down: Had 4 milling around oceanside flat in Cuba multiple casts, change flies and cast again all refusals. Later in day another oceanside flat, let fly settle permit comes in red hot on the follow, twitch rod to impart action thumbs his nose and turns away - est. weight at 22+ pounds....dammit man


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## jay.bush1434 (Dec 27, 2014)

Well it is a bit of a regional question for each fishery since we don’t have bones or permit in Texas. Maybe a unicorn’s tears worth of a chance in way south Texas but certainly not where I am on the upper Texas coast. So for me, from the list of fish from the OP; tarpon. Specifically, sight casted Texas tarpon on fly. They are super hard to find and we don’t have very clear water adding to the difficult task of even finding them to cast at. I cast at 2 all year and only put 1 in the air before it kindly returned my fly to me.

My local list would be:
big speckled trout (25” +)
Sheephead
Big black drum

As a footnote, we do have snook on the upper coast but they are even harder to find than the tarpon. I’ve been able to cast at 1 in 2 years.


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## mro (Jan 24, 2018)

When the water cools off and you run across that one huge snook you always wanted to cast at...
And it doesn't flee but just ignores you.


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## backbone (Jan 4, 2016)

Permit in shallow water for sure!
Then big snook unless your in the glades.
Sheepies in shallow clear water.


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## crboggs (Mar 30, 2015)

mro said:


> When the water cools off and you run across that one huge snook you always wanted to cast at...And it doesn't flee but just ignores you.


*lol* Yup.

I spent about 45 min throwing every fly in my box at a pod of snook that were holed up in a deeper spot. Big, breeder beach snook on the back side of a spoil island. I approached them from up current, down current, etc etc. Every presentation I could think of at different levels in the water column. No dice...no reaction...I may as well have not even been there...

So finally I see a guy and his girlfriend paddling kayaks nearby. They have rods and a bait bucket. She's filling out a nice bikini so I'm feeling generous. I wave them over and point out the snook. The guy and I spend the next 45 min trying to coach her through feeding a bait to one of them. No dice...but I was in a much better mood as I paddled away...


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

backbone said:


> Permit in shallow water for sure!
> Then big snook unless your in the glades.
> Sheepies in shallow clear water.


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## Jgb06 (Sep 8, 2016)

1. Big single permit
2. Tarpon (clear water)
3. Schooled up dinner plates
4. Bones


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## MRichardson (May 27, 2010)

ifsteve said:


> Permit. And its not close.


Yup. If he won't eat everything after that is moot.
And permit love to not eat. More than bones, certainly more than tarpon.


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## SomaliPirate (Feb 5, 2016)

Backwater said:


>


Hahaha well done!


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## Sabalo (Sep 6, 2019)

Brackish water carp
Big Black drum
Sheepshead


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## Scootermax (Jul 5, 2019)

SomaliPirate said:


> Hahaha well done!


1. Permit—-far above #2

2.Tarpon
3. Bones

Have casts to Permit Still trying to hook & land one. It’s on my bucket list @66 y.o.


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## karstopo (Nov 28, 2019)

I haven’t fly fished anywhere salty beyond the upper and middle Coast of Texas. 

I’m 0-2 on snook, got a follow on a red and white seaducer from 2 different 30” fish in clear water.

0-20 something on tripletail, one morning, zero interest, all big ones, boat mates struck out too. 

0-1 on a big stingray. Got the eat, but couldn’t really ever budge it from the bottom for more than a second or two. Finally, I intentionally broke the tippet getting fed up with a tug of war I was losing.


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## Canebrake51 (Feb 15, 2018)

Canebrake51 said:


> With you on black drum. Those nasty, ugly things won’t eat a fly for me. Don’t know why I still try.


Because if you keep trying you can catch one. 2019 was a black drum year for me, along with sheepshead, reds and tarpon. Scheming for permit in 2020.


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## Str8-Six (Jul 6, 2015)

Can anyone recommend any permit on fly books/etc.? Really liked the Tarpon on Fly book and wondering if something similar exist for permit


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## brokeoff (Sep 2, 2016)

Str8-Six said:


> Can anyone recommend any permit on fly books/etc.? Really liked the Tarpon on Fly book and wondering if something similar exist for permit


A Passion for Permit by Jon Olch.


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## jay.bush1434 (Dec 27, 2014)

Backwater said:


>


This is pure fly fishing gold. I am totally stealing this...


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