Past day's weather and waning moon cycle has revealed to me a good number of permit making themselves noticeable on the warmer parts of the tides right now. Past week's more ideal conditions (periods of warmth and southern winds), pushed hundreds of permit into their more favorite areas, happy to be back from their warm water hiding spots this winter. All signs are looking like there is ALOT of permit ready to come into the shallows this year, once our now warming water trend continues to advance and stabilize.
With the current waning moon cycle until Feb 14th new moon, the only thing that could worsen our now improving conditions would be another non-typical cold front. Let's hope that's not the case this year, a more typical cold front would only displace the permit fishery for a day or two from here on out. Expect these fish to be swarming the flats and backcountry of Key West and the lower Florida Keys by mid February, and all the way through March. Get em' while the gettin's good.
For those unfamiliar, this "pre-spawning permit flats fishery", will strengthen from now, all the way through March in the lower Keys. This time of year will produce the most numbers of these elusive fish until the following year. Last year it lasted into the first part of April, it is hard to say how long it will last this year. As stated, this is a pre-spawning event. When all of the breeding permit decide to leave the flats to actually "spawn", they do just that. Every single mature permit in the lower Keys will leave the shallows at once, heading off to nearby deeper water Gulf and nearshore Atlantic wrecks, reefs, and rock piles to spawn. Late May and early June marks their solid return to shallow water, which then lasts until the next oncoming winter.
So rather a fishing report of past day's findings, this is more of a fishing forecast of good things to come. It's the best time of year to catch permit on the flats in the Florida Keys. I still have a few open slots this spring; If interested in catching these pre-spawning permit this year please drop me a line for more details. Thanks for reading, visit www.lowerkeysflatsfishing.com for more info.
**** Return the resource, catch and release every permit! ****
