"Can we keep it to eat", I asked? It seemed a shame to release my first one, especially at that price.
Carlos gave me a crazy look that said catch-and-release fishing has a long, uphill battle in Cancun.
Then Matt took the rod, and we worked down into exposed deeper water, out of the snook territory. Carlos staked out, for reasons I didn't immediatly understand. Matt was wearing out fighting the wind with the 11 wt fairly quickly. Looking downwind, I saw subtle bow waves coming our way, then saw a gray shadow flash by.
"Jack", I said.
"Permit", Carlos corrected. Oh yes, permit. I had completely forgotten about THAT species. Hmmm.....
"Tailing", Carlos said excitedly, and pointed out the tell-tale black-edged fin waving above the water about 60 feet downwind. Big permit. Big deal. I had only one permit fly, and not not a very good one at that. This would be an exercise in futility.
"Cast", Carlos said.
"They won't hit a popper. It will just spook them."
"I have crab." Carlos held out his hand with a wiggling, silver dollar sized specimen he had produced from somewhere. It was tempting. Permit are very nearly impossible on a fly, but they are absolute babbling idiots for live crab.
"Rig it on the spinning rod."
By the time he got it rigged, the two fish had moved up to us and spooked. We kept casting the popping bug for snook or whatever while Carlos staked out and scanned the water. It was very tiring, and unproductive. Obviously Carlos was prepared to stay there and wait for permit for quite some time. I was too pessimistic to invest many precious minutes in them and wanted to get back into shallower water and structure where we had seen the snook.
"We go to new place. Maybe big tarpon", Carlos relented.
We motored downwind to the leeward mangrove border, awash in swells and whitecaps. From the looks, fishing would be impossible. I suspected there was a secret. Not until we were right on it did the narrow pass through the mangroves appear with a flow of clear water running out. Carlos nosed the boat into it and suddenly we were in one of those magical mangrove tunnels, completely enclosed by leaves, branches, water, and bottom. I spotted a small tarpon as we motored through, but there
was no room to cast.
