We have all heard of the super moons and the blue moons, so this one was it. We just had to fish during a moon that brings in rough tides and lots of bait trying to swim through it. What a perfect hunting ground it is for fish in those bridges, they have the cover to hunt and so we were thinking it may be a good opportunity to go. We started fishing in Channel 5 at night and had some fun with Tarpons as we sometimes do, manytimes we do not intend to catch them but since they are so plentiful in those bridges is almost inevitable to not catch one. Here is Nilson’s account for one of those times as it happened on this night.

“Plenty of poons at night. As soon as it hit water I put the rod down & it bended twice. I thought I had a nice Grover- it hit hoo plug. Then I see this poons jumping up in the air & I’m still fight him. He then heads under the bridge & I am thinking game over. I tip the rod down on the 7 ft rod as much as I can. He then does a U turn & come out the other side of the hole. So he wraps me around & now is in front of me jumping. I got him back in & was till fight when he took one final jump & the 1x wire hook came off. The poon was about 50+ Rory & the guys said it had to be more. It was damn fun with 15lb line & wimpy rod.”

We appreciated the awesomeness of the moon and as we were doing so a bird decided to stop by and watch it with us. Then it left and came back to steal some of our bait but this time it got tangled in our lines. We took our time getting it out and let it fly away unharmed.

The morning time came and the first permit hit Nilsons bait, after fighting it for a bit the permit won by wraping Nilson around a pylon. The second bite was on Rory’s bait and after another nice fight Rory also lost his battle to the pylons. Up next it was me I did the same o’l same o’l the left to right in between pylons dance. The permit move to the right I went left the permit went left I went right always trying to keep the line in between the pylons or as far away from them as possible. I have lost so many of them as well but not this time. Ricky was up next as if we were on a line for permit hits, Ricky did the dance as well, he put pressure on and was also able to land his permit. Nilson kept trying but for some reason he lost all the battles.

Then Rory got another turn at it, he ran like hell to his rod not giving the permit a chance to the pylons and got in the fight on a good crazy positions being able to win a nice price, an invitation to eating permit for dinner for weeks to come. Here is Rory’s account on what happened:

“Was a great time with the crew, lots of laughs, that little permit fought harder then any bigger one I’ve caught, got him on an Accurate 870 w/ 30 lb mono so couldn’t horse him too much with the light line, he took off under the tunnel so I had to lie down on the ground and stick half my body out of the hole in the wall of the bridge, and hold the rod straight down and fight him lying on my stomach…thank goodness I was using a 10 ft rod, anything shorter and I would have lost him for sure.” Nilson added “Rory fighting that permit was epic! I was setup on Rory side with the bridge net & Herb on the other side with the net since the permit went under tunnel. We weren’t going to lose that permit.” Sometimes teamwork is what counts.

As Ricky says, there always someone with a bad juju, last time it was me at Sebastian Jetty with loosing redfish after redfish and this time it happened to be Nilson and the permits. So in one of the bridges we decided to get a group picture commemorating this day.

From left to right is Ricky, Nilson, Rory, and Herbert

We hit a few more bridges afterwards as we did fish for 2 days straight. Below is a picture of an endengred Key Deer we saw as we were on our way to anotherone of the bridges.

Having brought sleeping bags kept us warmed up from the chilled nights. On this night we definitely had to thank John and his wife for an awesome coffee and breakfast. As always it was great pleasure fishing with John and his mellow sound. He retired in the keys and he’s loving fishing with a passion. John landed some short groupers and had his fun with the Tarpons on swimbaits.The rest of the days came with plenty mangrove snappers in the 11” to 12” inch range, the tarpons kept on harassing our baits, a few Spanish macks were caught, and saw some eagle rays jump up in mid air as they many times do. On the last nigh of fishing we ended sacrificing a permit for an awesome ceviche made right on the bridge, I must say it a perfect fish for it. Ricky took his time filleting it and let me tell you not a morsel was wasted.

Ceviche Recipe

Below are pics of the delicious Permit Ceviche.  Ricky cut the fish in small cubes mixed it with onions, bell peppers, and cilantro then added lime juice and a bit of white vinegar. Let it marinate for one hour in the cooler and then served it with crackers.

You can see the original report and everyone’s individual account on boatlessfishing.com