I had to work on Saturday, so I changed our boat reservation to Sunday. With the weather forecast, Sunday looked like the better day of the weekend anyways. The forecast for Sunday was SW winds 5-10 knots changing to SE wind. Since I only had the boat for the morning, I decided to head to the boils in hopes of getting Tania her elusive permit. The plan was to start at the boils and if Tania caught a permit or if the conditions weren’t right, we would head out to the reefs in 60ft and target snapper.

We arrived at the dock’s about 6:30am with some frozen shrimp and squid as we were unable to get any live shrimp. It’s that time of the year when it’s hard to get shrimp. Once we were checked out, I called Fort Pierce City Marina to see if they had any shrimp and we were in luck. We picked up five dozen and started our trek to the boils.

We made it to the boils about 7:30am. The water was nice but not as clean as I had hoped. With an outgoing tide the water was a bit murky. With the SW wind and the outgoing tide, we drifted southeast. We made our first drift about the middle of the boils with no bites. I repositioned the boat to the west end of the boils and we started to drift in a circle because of the water currents, but this drift proved fruitful. We ended up catching about 10-15 ladyfish, a few blue runners, a small mutton snapper and a baby black margate. Tania even lost a decent sized ladyfish to a shark. She couldn’t believe how hard it was pulling until we got just the head back. Although none of the fish we caught we caught went into the cooler, the tug on the line put smiles on our faces.

Eventually, we moved out to the buoy to make a few drifts there to see if we could catch any meat for the cooler. While we were heading out the Danco boat was hanging out in the same area. You know you’re in a good spot when the professionals are fishing in the same area. Unfortunately, the fish didn’t cooperate after the second drift so we made the run to the 60ft reefs.

We made it to the reefs about 9:00am. We started off by jigging since there were already several boats in the area drifting the reefs. The first drift we had a few bites but nothing committed. I also changed up from the 30g jigs we used at the boils to 60g jigs as we were a bit deeper. This proved to be the ticket as the first drift after we changed up, we caught three fish, although all three fish were just grunts. After this drift a boat came up and decided to anchor on our drift path so we changed it up and anchored also.

While anchored Tania and I had a few bites but nothing was landed. Tania had two big fish on and lost both. One she told me she was stuck on the bottom and as I watched the line, I saw it moving and I put some tension on the line and her fish woke up. I handed her rod back to her and the fight was on. It was a fight I knew we would lose as I was sure it was a big grouper and we didn’t have the tackle to pull up a big grouper. About 5 minutes into the fight, it finally broke Tania off. It’s fun to fight a big fish, however they really wear you out.

At this point Tania was growing frustrated with the lack of action and asked to go back to the boils. We pulled up anchor and made the run back. The tide had changed to an incoming tide and it cleared the water up. Tania and I were hopeful this would mean we would catch a permit. Since we had 40g jigs on already we just kept them on and on our first drop both Tania and I hooked up. Tania brought up a blue runner and I had one of the biggest pork fish I had ever seen. Unfortunately, the bite died off after those two fish were caught. We had to head back to the dock about 11:30am in order to be back to the dock by 1:00pm. At 11:12am I looked at Tania and said we tried to but it didn’t look like God would bless us with the permit today. Tania suggested one last drift by the buoy before we called it a day. I agreed and as we made our way to set up for the drift, we both said a prayer!

About 11:20am I got a massive hit and my drag was screaming. As I was walking around the boat, I had to pass Tania. She was bringing her line in, however I needed to pass her so she lifted her rod for me to go under. As I was under her rod, she slapped me in the back of the head with her rod! She got a massive hit and at that moment I realized we both had fish on. I was pretty sure with how the fish were fighting we had permit on.

A few minutes into the fight for me, my fish pretty much stopped pulling so I kept tension on my line and told Tania to get her fish to the boat. Tania and I danced past each other several times before she had her fish to the boat. I put my rod in the holder and netted her fish. Once the fish was onboard, Tania started to cry as she was saying “I finally did it, I finally landed a permit”. Since I still had my fish on the line, I dropped the net and started to fight my fish. I got to the other side of the boat, and I looked at Tania and told her she needed to stop crying and she needed to hold my rod while I dealt with her fish. She refused at first, until I told her she either needed to take the permit out of the net or hold my rod. Everyone who knows Tania, knows she is afraid of the fish while they are alive so she finally took my rod. I took her permit tossed it in the cooler and then proceeded to swap Tania the net for my rod.

My permit made a few more hard runs but it didn’t take too long for me to have it at the boat. Tania did a great job netting my fish. At this point I was finally able to relax and take in what just happened. It was a lot to process at the time but we were successful in landing both fish. I marked my fish with an X on its forehead so we could tell the difference as Tania wanted to know who’s was bigger, I love her competitive nature!

Once we had everything settled it was just past 11:30am, so we had to head back to the dock. The drive back to the dock was interesting as Tania and I were still in the moment of catching two permits at the same time. Even though it was a slow day fishing, we were blessed with two great fish to bring home for supper. I gave a fillet to a family at the dock and I gave another to our neighbor. The other two I kept for myself as I love permit.

Tania and I pray all who made it out this weekend enjoyed the beautiful weather we were given. Hopefully you all had blessed and safe trips. For those going out this week we pray you have tight lines and good times!

The Treasure Coast Chapter of Salt Strong is now holding monthly meetings in Fort Pierce. The meetings are being held on the 4^th Thursday of the month. The next meeting will be July 27^th. These club meeting are for inside members only. If you would like to become an inside member here is what the membership includes: access to the in-person meetings as well as all the other perks such as 20% off all tackle, Smart Fishing spots, and insider information on trends in your area. We will also have guest speakers at our meetings and we will be holding monthly tournaments. Click the link below to get a FREE pack of slam shady or a 10-Day Test-Drive of The Smart Fishing Spots App and The Salt Strong Insider Club . . . And We’ll Ship You $35 Worth of FREE Lures, an “Inshore Fishing Manifesto” Book (Physical copy) & Decals – Yours to Keep Even If You Cancel!