July 17, 2026 | 5:45 AM | Everglades City, Florida
Post courtesy of guest author Mel
The moment I stepped out of the air conditioning and into the pre-dawn darkness, the Everglades humidity hit me like a warm, wet towel across the face. The forecast called for 95 degrees and virtually no wind — nothing unusual for South Florida in July, but a reminder that the day would demand as much from us physically as it would technically.
I was meeting Carl, my fishing partner of forty years, for a run into Everglades National Park. Our plan was ambitious: travel forty miles south and work the last of the outgoing tide for snook and tarpon. We were four days past the new moon, so the tides weren’t ideal, but conditions rarely are. We were giving it a go anyway.
The Run South
I loaded my gear into Carl’s Chittum skiff and we launched at 6:00 AM, forty-five minutes before sunrise.
The run south would take just over an hour, but a sunrise over Everglades National Park never disappoints. The sky bled orange and pink across a vast, flat wilderness that feels utterly unchanged by time — at least from the water. We were both quietly hoping for a repeat of our trip to the same area six weeks earlier, when we caught so many snook we lost count.
As we ran south, I thought about how many times we had navigated these waters over the decades. In the early days, we relied on dog-eared NOAA paper charts — the only tools available. I still have one of those charts tucked into my fishing log. It’s worn and frayed, splitting at the folds, covered in penciled notes marking navigation routes and productive fishing spots we’d discovered through trial and error. It’s a record of a different era of exploration.
Today, we were flying south at 30 mph aboard Carl’s new 18-foot Chittum carbon fiber skiff, guided by a large-screen GPS chart plotter loaded with Florida Marine Tracks software. The display showed our position overlaid on high-definition satellite imagery, with established tracks that kept us clear of the oyster bars, rocks, and shallow sand banks that litter this stretch of Southwest Florida’s last true wilderness. Forty years of progress, condensed into a glowing screen on a flats skiff — though I’ll admit the old chart still tells a better story.
High Hopes, Stubborn Ladyfish, MIA Tarpon
As we made the wide turn into the mouth of the river, we immediately spotted bait being busted at one of our favorite spots — a place where converging currents create eddies that trap baitfish and give snook an ideal ambush point. It looked promising.
We started with spinning gear rigged with topwater plugs, walking them across the surface in that side-to-side dance that rings the dinner bell for snook and tarpon. Carl deployed the trolling motor and we began working the shoreline.
The bites came almost immediately — but they weren’t snook. Ladyfish were hammering our baits with reckless enthusiasm. We did everything we could to shake them free without handling them, which worked more often than not. We switched to quarter-ounce jigs tipped with DOA paddle tail soft plastics, hoping the change in presentation would draw the snook we were after. It didn’t.
After fishing several spots at the mouth of the river and managing just one snook, we made the decision to run up “No Name” Creek to look for rolling tarpon.
We idled quietly up the creek — the same creek where, a year earlier, we had spread the ashes of our friend Fred. Carl told me it was Fred’s favorite place. He had caught many tarpon there over the years, and before he passed, he told his wife he wanted to remain there. It felt right to pause in that spot for a moment.
Fred must have taken all the tarpon with him, though, because we didn’t see a single fish rolling in the creek.
We moved back to the river and tried several more spots inside, but the ladyfish had apparently claimed the territory. We eventually concluded that heavy recent rains had pushed so much fresh water out of the backcountry that the snook had retreated to saltier water elsewhere.
The Turn North — And a Change of Fortune
It was 10:30 AM when Carl fired up the Chittum and turned us north. The sea breeze hadn’t filled in yet. Far to the west, thunderheads were beginning to build their daily towers, but out over the Gulf the water was a sheet of hammered glass, and the horizon dissolved seamlessly into a pale sky.
Carl slowed the skiff and began scanning the surface for pushes — the subtle nervous water that signals fish moving just below. It didn’t take long.
He backed off the throttle, idled toward a disturbance, and quietly told me to pick up my 9-weight fly rod and tie on a crab fly.
The Spaghetti Leg Crab — A Two-Year Wait
The fly had a story of its own.
A couple of years earlier, Carl and our mutual friend and guide Steve, had been fishing not far from where we were when they encountered permit. Steve had tied a batch of “flexo-style” crab flies with unusually long, flowing legs — he called them Spaghetti Leg Crabs — and handed one to Carl. Carl promptly used it to land a beautiful permit on the fly. Steve later showed me the pattern, and I sat down and tied several in brown, tucking them carefully into my fly box.
They had sat there, untouched, for two years.
I pulled one out now, tied it to my leader, and took my position on the bow as Carl deployed the trolling motor.
Permit — Three Casts to Glory
The first school found us before we found them. A wake materialized and moved toward the skiff with surprising speed — permit. Carl killed the trolling motor, but the motor let out an audible beep as it powered down. The school spooked instantly, scattering before I could lift the rod.
The second school appeared shortly after. We could read the push of water on the surface well before we could see the fish themselves. Carl worked the trolling motor with practiced precision, angling the skiff to intercept their erratic path. When we were within range, I made a cast — but I loaded the rod too high, and the shadow of the fly line passed over the lead fish. The school detonated like a depth charge had gone off beneath them. I cursed quietly, filing the lesson away: stay low, stay quiet, stay out of their sky.
The third school appeared from the northwest. Carl lined us up perfectly and eased us in. This time I used a low, sidearm cast, keeping the fly line close to the water and well out of the fishes’ sightlines. The crab fly landed softly a few feet ahead of the school and began to sink.
I started a slow retrieve, bringing the long legs to life — pulsing, wiggling, exactly like a crab trying to escape. The lead fish locked onto it immediately. Then a second fish. Then a third. I increased the pace of my retrieve and the fish responded, competing to reach the fly first. I stripped faster. They came faster. My hand was a blur when the lead fish surged forward and ate it cleanly.
I kept stripping until I felt the full weight of the fish — and then it was gone, rocketing away from the skiff as if it had somewhere urgent to be in Cuba.
The Fight
What followed was one of the most chaotic and exhilarating fights I’ve experienced in four decades of fly fishing.
As the fish burned off the fly line, a coil on the deck tangled, knotted, and shot through the rod guides. I braced for something to fail — a guide popping off, the tippet parting — but somehow, nothing did. The fish peeled off all the fly line and burned deep into the backing, then reversed course, charging back toward the skiff. I reeled furiously with my Tibor Everglades reel, trying to recover line and maintain tension before the slack could cost me the fish.
The knot in the fly line came back into view. I was going to have to reel it back through the guides to keep the fish tight. Somehow, it passed through cleanly. I exhaled.
What followed was one of the most chaotic and exhilarating fights I’ve experienced in four decades of fly fishing.
As the fish burned off the fly line, a coil on the deck tangled, knotted, and shot through the rod guides. I braced for something to fail — a guide popping off, the tippet parting — but somehow, nothing did. The fish peeled off all the fly line and burned deep into the backing, then reversed course, charging back toward the skiff. I reeled furiously with my Tibor Everglades reel, trying to recover line and maintain tension before the slack could cost me the fish.
The knot in the fly line came back into view. I was going to have to reel it back through the guides to keep the fish tight. Somehow, it passed through cleanly. I exhaled.
The Moment
Carl and I stared at each other for a second — then erupted. High fives, hooting, laughing. We did it. A permit on fly had been a decades long ambition for both of us, and we had just checked it off together.
We took a few quick photographs, removed the crab fly — the hook had nearly straightened completely during the fight — and eased the fish back into the water. I held it gently, swaying it back and forth to push water through its gills, feeling it gather strength in my hands. After a few moments I felt it flex, and I opened my fingers from around its tail. It was gone in an instant, back into the green water without so much as a backward glance.
Reflection
A lot of things had to go right that day — and plenty went wrong. The knotted fly line. The bent hook. The trolling motor’s ill-timed beep. But we managed to overcome each obstacle, and the fish ended up in the net.
Carl said we paid our dues. He’s right.
Forty years of time on the water. Thousands of hours fly casting and fly tying. Decades of learning to read the pulse of the Glades — its tides, its currents, its moods. The skiff-handling skills Carl has refined into something close to an art form. All of it came to bear in a handful of seconds on a glassy July morning in the backcountry.
And a little serendipity. You can never leave that out.
I’m grateful beyond words that I got to share this moment with my friend Carl. We’ve chased fish together for forty years, caught more than I could ever count, and experienced more than I could ever fully document in these pages. But today was a first — and with any luck, not the last time we fool a permit on a fly.
