7 minute read
Where Do Permit Spawn in The Bahamas?
BY SUE COCKING
Bonefish & Tarpon Trust begins work in The Bahamas to locate and ultimately conserve permit spawning sites.
Permit: one of the most enigmatic, unpredictable, maddening, and ardently-pursued gamefish in the Western Atlantic. Bonk one on the head with a live, silver-dollar crab and it will likely whip around and gobble the bait immediately. But cast a scentless, artificial rendition of that crab—say, a Merkin fly—to that same fish, and there’s a much better than even chance he’ll refuse it.
“They don’t keep you honest; they keep you humble,” said Justin Lewis, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust’s Bahamas Initiative Manager, summing up the allure of Trachinotus falcatus.
Each and every one of this species that an angler manages to catch in South Florida and the Keys, Belize, Mexico, The Bahamas, and Central America (and all those he or she has swung at and missed) becomes a cherished memory that leaves us longing for a return engagement. And to ensure that those happy encounters keep happening, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust is building an information database to conserve this iconic flats bulldog.
In 2011, bolstered by extensive research and enthusiastic support from anglers and guides, BTT worked with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to create the Special Permit Zone in the Keys and to implement size and bag limits for the species. Building from that success as well as a concurrent project to identify bonefish spawning sites in the Keys, The Bahamas and the Caribbean, BTT has begun the process of identifying permit fishing areas and spawning sites in the islands of The Bahamas, so that eventually this information supports a permit habitat conservation effort.
“A lot of anglers are coming to The Bahamas now to specifically target permit,” Lewis said. “The fishery is still so new. The guides are seeing more, in part because they are actually looking for them. As the fishery develops, it becomes more important to identify the spawning sites so that we can eventually work with partners to get them protected. Just like with bonefish, if you don’t protect the spawning sites, the fishery will be short-lived.”
Permit are a developing component of The Bahamas’ vibrant flats fishery which, according to a 2018 BTT economic study, accounts for more than $169 million annually in economic impact to the island nation.
Step #1 in this effort is for Lewis and his BTT colleagues to talk with guides, anglers, spearfishers and commercial hook-and line fishers throughout The Bahamas to find out where permit are being targeted and if anyone has seen behavior that might be spawning. According to Dr. Aaron Adams, BTT’s Director of Science and Conservation, permit are ‘broadcast spawners’, which form large schools of males and females that release sperm and eggs for immediate fertilization in the water column.
Adams says research conducted in Belize shows permit there spawn from roughly March to November, typically a week after a full moon. The larvae drift around for a few weeks before inhabiting sandy beaches as juveniles. At about six to eight inches, the fish move into deeper sandy bottom and areas with sparse seagrass. Adams says data from permit studies in Florida show females become sexually mature at about 22 inches (fork length) while males reach maturity at about 19 inches (fork length). Permit can reach a maximum age of 23 years or more and weigh 60 pounds.
When it’s time to spawn, he said, they tend to migrate away from their home range on flats, reef edges and rock piles out to deeper reef promontories and wrecks.
Lewis says guides in the Abacos and Crooked Island were among the first to focus on fishing for permit in The Bahamas, followed by their colleagues on Andros and Grand Bahama. As a resident of Grand Bahama, Lewis says he sees fish in the 15- to 20-pound range spread all around the island. His personal best is a 31-pounder caught using a live crab. Adams says juveniles have been spotted along the beaches of Grand Bahama’s south coast.
“From what we know so far, the permit are unlikely to migrate from one island to another to spawn, so islands are probably connected by larvae,” Adams said. “Once we know the spawning sites, we can run computer models of ocean currents to estimate where larvae go. For example, bonefish larvae spawned off Abaco—if the currents are right—will end up on Grand Bahama, Andros and Eleuthera.”
Adams says some mature permit may share spawning grounds with other species such as grouper and snapper.
BTT’s goal in The Bahamas, he said, is to follow the process they’ve used to work with fishing guides to identify feeding and home range areas and spawning locations, and to share this information with Bahamas resource management agencies, like Bahamas National Trust, to protect these important habitats. As with bonefish, it’s better to be proactive than wait until there is an imminent threat to the health of habitats important to permit.
For example, he said, a proposed cruise port on Long Island could impact both bonefish and permit spawning habitats.
“What we’re trying to do is create that map showing all these important habitats and use that as our focus to work with Bahamas collaborators for spatial management,” Adams explained. “We’re not saying, ‘don’t build it—just don’t damage areas they utilize for spawning.’”
BTT has already worked successfully with The Bahamas government to designate a dozen spots where bonefish spawn as conservation areas. Adams said that eventually the organization will share its permit findings with the Bahamas National Trust, Department of Marine Resources, and Department of Environmental Planning and Protection in hopes of adding permit spawning and feeding grounds to their management program.
Longtime flats fishing guide Whitney Rolle of McLean’s Town on Grand Bahama’s East End supports the BTT permit initiative.
“That would be good,” he said. “You always want to protect the spawning grounds, but you have to find them. I’ve never seen them in the act like I have the bonefish. I know for sure permit is a deepwater fish, especially around the wrecks and the blue holes. I never see them there spawning, but I believe they spawn offshore out on the reef. I like to look for them in the summer months—in June and July—and they have roe in them.”
I flyfished three days in May with Rolle in Grand Bahama’s East End, eventually releasing six bonefish. Sketchy weather (rain, wind, lightning) discouraged me from the pursuit of permit. But late one afternoon, the skies cleared just enough over Sweeting Cay to spot a permit of about 20 pounds ambling unhurriedly on the flats about 40 feet off the bow of Rolle’s skiff. The only rod ready to cast was my 9-weight with a #4 pink Gotcha (no crab patterns available), so I put it out there about two feet in front of the fish—complete with knees shaking and breath held. He wandered over to it, tipped down for a couple of seconds to inspect it, then moseyed across the flat. I stripped the fly in as fast as I could and hurled it again at the slow-moving fish, which turned his head briefly toward the sinking fly, then continued on his way.
I retrieved the fly, inspected it for damage: rearranged eyes, torn-up flash, etc., but it was unscathed.
Rolle shook his head.
“Permit don’t like flies,” he said.
Maddening, yes. But endlessly tantalizing and well-deserving of protection.
Sue Cocking is a freelance outdoors writer in Sebastian, FL. For 20 years she worked as an outdoors writer for the Miami Herald. She loves flyfishing, scuba diving and traveling.
