In search of Trachinotus africanus (aka the fourth permit), Oliver White and Jako Lucas went fly fishing in Oman. They came away with a new permit box ticked and a different way of fishing experienced. Photos: Austin Coit, Hayden Dobbins.

Depending on where you live, you will probably have different ideas of what counts as a permit. There’s the Atlantic permit, Trachinotus atlanticus. If you’re from North America, Central America or the Caribbean it’s what will come to mind when permit are mentioned. If you’re from South Africa, the Seychelles, Oman, Australia or elsewhere across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, there’s a good chance you will think of an Indo-Pacific permit, Trachinotus blochii. More recently, other species of permit like the Trachinotus anak found in the tropical waters of Northern Australia, have had their status as legit permit targets solidified by permit fly fishing nuts from all over the world.

There are many variants and sub-species from the greater permit/pompano clan that have claims before the court of public permit opinion. Take for example the Trachinotus mookaleeaka the ‘Indian permit’ and Trachinotus maxillosus aka ‘Guinea permit,’ but they are caught too infrequently and too little is known about them for a solid case to be made. Perhaps the last addition to the confirmed/legit/viable target permit list is the Africanus permit, Trachinotus africanus. Found along the Omani coast, where it overlaps in range with the blochii, the africanus has been targeted for years by veteran DIY saltwater fly anglers and a few Middle East-based operators.

After successfully adding the Anak permit to their species tick list while filming Glorious Bastards in Australia a few years ago, it made sense that jet-setting guides Oliver White and Jako Lucas would be drawn to Oman to target the africanus, aka the 4th permit. There, they teamed up with local experts Nick Bowles, Stu Webb and the rest of the Ocean Active crew. The film from that trip, Four Of A Kind, is currently playing on the F3T circuit. We caught up with Oliver and Jako to find out a bit more about this fishery.

The Mission: So how did the trip and the film come about?

Jako: With all the destinations and species available in the world now, a lot of it’s been done. So now it’s about putting more challenges out there. For us the challenge has gone from trying to just catch one permit, which is a Holy Grail in itself, to catching four different species of permit. The africanus has become this legitimate permit target species.

Oliver: On my first trip to Oman I saw three Indo-Pacific permit and caught two. I never saw an africanus, but the success we had was really encouraging and it was one of the most stunning, aesthetic places I’ve ever seen. Finally, after I made it to Australia, Jako and I each had our Indo-Pacific, our Atlantic, and our anak. Now the justification was there to go back to Oman and grind it out for that africanus. That was the premise for the film – going back to Oman, looking for the fourth permit. We pitched it to a bunch of people and Costa jumped on board.

“You want to be tight enough that you can feel but loose enough that it looks real.”

TM: What’s the fishery like compared to other places you’ve fished for permit?

Oliver: So part of what makes it so productive in Oman is that the cliffs come right to the ocean with all these rocks at the bottom of the cliff, and then there’s this huge two metre swell. When the swell comes up, the fish move up onto the rock to feed, and you’ll see them tailing on the beds as the water’s receding. Sometimes they even get stuck up there and flop back off. So we were trying to cast a mussel or crab fly up into the top of the swell and then tumbling the fly down. The idea is to wash a crab or a mussel into the surf zone. You want to be tight enough that you can feel, but loose enough that it looks real. It is fucking weird, man.

Jako: It’s pretty dramatic, with these big cliffs and waves crashing onto the rocks and the mussel beds. Unlike the other permit that behave the same way, cruising and tailing around turtle grass flats or on the sand, these ones feed very differently. You have to go on a specific tide when the waves are crashing over the mussel beds. Using the waves to their advantage, these fish take the opportunity to wash up onto the mussel beds and feed. Sometimes the water goes out too quick and fish are left flopping on the rocks for a moment. It’s wild to see how committed they are to getting the food they’re looking for.

TM: In terms of their behaviour, what else did you notice about the africanus?

Oliver: When we found them, they were generally in a group, but there was inconsistency. We saw tailing fish right up on the rocks. We’d also see them swimming around in the swell. We hooked fish that we just saw floating in deep water. The camera guy went swimming with a mask on, got out of the water and was like, “There’s a whole bunch of fish over there.” There was nothing going on, nothing indicating that we should be fishing there, they were just floating around. We dropped a fly in front of them and they came over and ate it. They’re… different.

TM: How do they fight compared atlanticus, blochii and anak?

Oliver: The fish aren’t that big, but they’re really strong. The way they fight and the fact that they’re often in a deeper water, having the backbone of a 10-weight is really kind of nice. Nick recommended 10-weights, but I fished nines. When you do go tight, you’re pulling the fish away from the rocks and they’re just coming along as you’re stripping in and it’s like, no big deal. Then you get them 15 feet away and they suddenly figure it out. Then they become badasses, man. They go straight down into stuff. You break a lot of fish off because it felt like nothing’s happening. It’s a full-speed transition. It’s pretty nuts.

Jako: That was definitely the strangest thing for me, how every single time we hooked one, it would come towards us so easily. It’s almost like they lull you into a false sense of security. Then suddenly, as if they got one big scoop of fresh air, they wake up and then just go down and try take you straight to the rocks. There’s a lot of rocks, mussels, and old fish traps down there. Until that fish is in the net, they will go for structure, go down and use the side of their bodies. You can see on the ones that you land how they have been feeding and fighting. They are silver, but you can see all the scrape marks down their bodies. They’re dirty, dogged, bullet-shaped fighters that have a lot of stamina. Definitely up there with other permit species for a fight.

TM: Do they get big?

Jako: They are comparable to the blochii. Nick and the guys have landed africanus up to like 22 pounds – a bus! One of the guys took 45 minutes to land a fish. I can see that if they stay down it could take a while. You have to really pull on those things.

TM: Did you see the blochii?

Oliver: We did, but not necessarily overlapping in the same place. It was a similar dynamic to what I had seen in Oman in the past, in that when we found white sand, we found Indo-Pacific permit on that. We didn’t catch any, but we saw them.

Jako: For the most part you’ll find blochii on beaches, which shows you the different feeding patterns of the two permit. I don’t think we saw a single blochii feeding on the mussel beds. It wasn’t quite vice versa. We did see some africanus near the beach when the tide was out. It was almost like they were kind of waiting for the tide to come back in so they could go back and feed. That was the only time we saw them cruising around closer to the beach. There are places in Oman where you can catch them from the beach. But I believe for that to happen there needs to be mussel beds in the area.

My friend and client John Snipes caught a few africanus from the beach, but the permit were chasing sardines into the beach. So they might be a little bit more predatory than other permit in that sense because I know guys catch them on these silver plugs too. Maybe when they’re in the mussel and oyster beds, they zone in on that and when the big sardines are around, then they just go after those.

TM: Was this trip a combo of boat and beach-based fishing?

Oliver: We did a couple of different things. We were fishing from the boat in the swell, up on the rocks and we went and walked some beaches looking for cruising fish. The beach is a lot of fun and a lot more challenging, because there’s monster surf. The fish are on the other side of it and you’re trying to get out there and make a cast over the surf. We were getting fucking rocked in the surf, barrelled over.

Jako: We did some beach stuff where if you’re not there on the right tide you can walk a long way without seeing shit. I think Oman is almost like Gabon where it’s a beautiful, cool fishery, but you’re going to grind if you don’t know what you’re doing. DIY fishing in remote parts of Oman is only for a select few. The africanus are pretty tricky to get to because of the high cliffs. You need a boat, but this is not like Florida where anyone can pitch up and attempt it. You need local knowledge.

We did a bit of research beforehand, but we relied on Nick, Stu, and the Ocean Active guys for all the information. They have it figured out. Nick’s been there for two decades or more. I think when Stu, one of the Alphonse Fishing Co guides, started working with Nick, he was definitely pivotal in figuring out which fly to use, the technique, and all that stuff.

TM: Without giving away too many state secrets, what can you tell us about the most successful flies?

Jako: The Ocean Active guys are obviously a bit guarded about the techniques that they figured out and for good reason, because they have these fish dialled. But I can say that they went from using crab flies a lot to using more imitative mussel flies. There was this specific one that Stu tied called the Love Mussel. Like the Alphlexo crab for the Seychelles. You went from catching fish here and there to catching lots more fish. It was a complete game changer.

It was so dramatic how the africanus were feeding on it. We tried with other flies, but to be honest we didn’t get one fish to eat the crabs. It worked so well that at one stage we had one Love Mussel left and Oliver and I would just take turns. He would catch one and then give me the fly and then I’d get one and give him the fly back.

Read our interview about the trip, the unique africanus permit, the Omani coast and more in The Mission Issue 39. It’s free (but you can buy us a beer on Patreon.)