As dawn broke I noticed some suspicious activity to my right and when the shad finally disappeared I went over for a closer look. I saw a school of maybe 20 large permit tailing in between the rocks no more than 10m from the side....viskoors.
Now I've battled these bad boys a couple of times in this particular spot and had my @ss handed to me every single time so far. The braid is simply not abrasion resistant and these fish are very, very dirty fighters in between the bricks. Knowing this I had come prepared and changed from my regular spinning rig to a quantum cabo that I'd spooled with 13kg Berkley mono (that's the only decent brand I can find here), which I hoped would give me a decent shot at landing one.
I tied on a home-made olive & white bucktail and carefully moved into casting position to avoid spooking the fish - they were literally in 2 feet of very clear water and tailing like crazy every time the waves receded.
I wanted to drop the bucktail a little bit behind the school and work it through the middle, but viskoors had other ideas and I landed the lure with a nice plop right on top of a decent looking permit. The fish duly scattered, taking a couple mates with it, but to my great surprise the rest of the school continued tailing like nothing happened.
I twitched the bucktail twice and felt the unmistakable steady pull of a permit...game on! What followed was a 20 minute tug-of-war as I tried to control a very strong fish trying like hell to cut me off on the mussel beds. These fish are insanely strong, definitely one of the hardest fighting fish I've ever hooked.
After a long, hard battle I finally managed to get the fish into a gap into a little gulley and lifted it out by its tail. By this time some German tourists had arrived to watch the sunrise and fortunately one of them understood my frantic shouts to help me take a pic.
The fish measured 67cm, no giant, but a new PB for me and one of my most memorable captures ever. After a quick photo session I spent a very long time standing waist deep in the water balancing on some rather precarious rocks trying to revive the fish, which had completely exhausted itself. Eventually the fish regained some energy and swam away in good shape, but not before a German guy had made a video of the crazy Saffa getting smashed by waver after wave....I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere
