4.68kg T.anak on 2kg tippet.
My obsession for targeting the two Indo-Pacific permit species available to Australian anglers is now nearing the end of its second decade and seems to be only growing in intensity. Over that time I’ve been fortunate enough to make countless memorable captures of the two species (trachinotus anak and trachinotus blochii), but this one made during my 2023/24 season, of a 4.68kg t.anak on 2kg tippet, fly fishing tackle is up there as one of my best.
This is not only due to the relatively high point score of the capture but also the difficulty of landing such a fish, solo, whilst utilising fly fishing tackle, where the maximum allowable length of leader (bite tippet) between the hook and the class tippet is 30.48cm. This limiting factor means there is never a time during the fight that you can pull on the fish more than what the line class tippet will allow.
In the late morning of Sunday the 16th of June, after spotting this particular fish feeding in less than 0.5metres of water, I presented my fly, got the bite and successfully made the hook set. The next 20 minutes or so involved following the fish around, applying maximum pressure whenever I could, before it gained the advantage when it made its way out into deeper water. After nearly an hour of having very little control as the fish slugged it out down deep, I was eventually able to guide it back to the shallows and into my landing net, a total of 90 minutes after the initial hook-up.
At 4.68kg, this is a long way short of some of my biggest Indo-Pacific permit captures but it was the culmination of the lengthy and meticulous preparation phase involved in targeting these permit on very light tippet, with my relatively error free angling effort during the 90 minute battle, that has resulted in this capture being one of my more memorable of all time.