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While fishing with Angler Management Charters guides Clay Blankenship, left, and Colby McMahon, right, Harris Bollinger, 17, of Knoxville, second from right, caught a 2-pound, 10.4-ounce permit off Orange Beach Wednesday afternoon that will likely establish a new Alabama state record for the species. Bollinger family friend Warren Morelock, 12, holds the 2-pound permit he caught just before Bollinger boated his record fish. Permit are so rarely caught off of Alabama, that Bollinger's fish is the first to be submitted for record consideration. (Courtesy Clay Blankenship/Angler Management Charters)
Harris Bollinger of Knoxville caught a 2-pound, 10.4-ounce permit while on a chartered fishing trip at the Perdido Pass jetties Wednesday to potentially establish the Alabama State Record for the species.
The fish are so rarely caught off Alabama that the 17-year-old Bollinger's fish was the first to ever be submitted for record consideration.
Orange Beach inshore guides Clay Blankenship and Colby McMahon of Angler Management charters had put Bollinger, his father Todd Bollinger, little brother Nick Bollinger, 11, and family friends Warren Morelock Sr. and Warren Morelock Jr. on a good sheepshead bite near the rocks while fishing live shrimp for sheepshead Wednesday afternoon.
Not long before Bollinger's fish bit, Morelock Jr. had boated the crew's first permit of the day. Blankenship said he immediately knew the fish wasn't a pompano.
"Right away I said, "Man, that's not a pompano.' We got on the Internet to check what the record was. When we didn't see one listed, we had an idea it could establish the record," Blankenship said. "Then we got the second in the boat and it was obvious that this one's bigger.
"I'd never before caught one while fishing off Orange Beach."
Bollinger said he knew something was different as soon as the permit hit the live shrimp Carolina-rigged on the bottom.
"We were catching a bunch of sheepshead and as soon as this one hit it felt different. It pulled the rod down toward the water and around the boat," said Bollinger, who regularly fishes for crappie back home. "I never caught a fish that fought like that."
He said Blankenship pointed to the fish's orange belly as a dead giveaway that, like Morelock's fish, his wasn't a pompano either.
"It's crazy. I never thought I would have a state record," Bollinger said. "It's pretty cool."
He's already spread the word to his high school buddies back in Knoxville.
"They were pretty impressed," he said.
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Permit, such as these two caught by Harris Bollinger, bottom, and Warren Morelock Jr, off Orange Beach on Wednesday afternoon, have a deep, diamond-shaped body and orange belly coloring that distinguishes them from their sleeker, yellow-bellied jack-family cousin, the pompano. (Courtesy Clay Blankenship/Angler Management Charters)
Alabama Marine Resources Division biologist Karon Aplin confirmed that the fish was indeed a permit Thursday morning. The fish measured 14.5 inches at the fork and had a girth of 14.75 inches.
The larger girth than length is a trait that distinguishes permit from their close cousin the pompano, Aplin said.
"They're more of a diamond-shaped fish than the pompano with a deeper shape to their body," Aplin said.
Permit occur in the western Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies, according to the International Game Fish Association.
The greatest concentrations are off south Florida and it is there that the biggest specimens are taken. Permit are essentially shallow water, schooling fish occurring over sandy flats and reefs in depths from 6 to 140 feet of water.
They are most often caught by fly-fishermen wading those shallow, sandy flats where the fish grub along the bottom for prey species such as crustaceans, mollusks and evensmall finfish.
They travel in schools of 10 or more fish, though occasionally they may be seen in great numbers. They tend to become more solitary with age, according to the IGFA.
Fish caught on the flats average 15 to 20 pounds while specimens approaching 50 pounds live on offshore structure. The IGFA All-Tackle World Record is a 60-pound beast caught off Brazil in December 2002.
Dr. Bob Shipp said Bollinger's catch is not as surprising as it would have been just a few years ago.
He said permit have recently been showing up everywhere along the central Gulf Coast, increasing the chances that people fishing shrimp for other shallow-water fish such as pompano or sheepshead would encounter them.
Shipp pointed to the two permit that were brought to the scales during the 2012 Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. They were the first Shipp had seen at the scales in his 30 years of judging the annual tournament on Dauphin Island.
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When Justin Turner and Luke Meyers first weighed these fish on the last day of the 2012 Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, they were entered as the first- and third-place pompano. Upon some further discussion among rodeo judges, it was determined the fish were actually permit, the first that Chief Rodeo Judge Dr. Bob Shipp had seen in his 30 years at the scales. Since only one specimen could be entered for Most Unusual consideration and Meyers caught his fish first, he ended up claiming third place in the category. (Jeff Dute/jdute@al.com
The permit caught by Luke Meyers as he and partner Justin Turner targeted pompano with live shrimp while wading Dauphin Island's east end claimed third place in the Most Unusual category.
Turner also caught a permit, but only one could be entered for Most Unusual consideration and Meyers had landed his first.
Shipp noted that research netting often turns up young permit mixed in with pompano and they've even started showing up in central Gulf Coast fish markets, often mislabeled as pompano.
Just last week, he received a picture of what were thought to be 10 pompano caught off Destin. Shipp identified all of them as permit.
Juvenile permit are present off Alabama's coast beginning in the spring, he said, but they normally retreat south with the onset of cold weather.
According to several research papers, permit appear to have a wide tolerance in terms of water temperature. As long as the water is suitably salty and relatively clear, permit can thrive in water ranging between 65 and 95 degrees.
In contrast, pompano appear to have a narrower window of water-temperature tolerance, ranging from 72 to 80 degrees.
Blankenship said the surface water temperature around Perdido Pass and just offshore of Orange Beach has been hovering around 62 degrees in the morning. It's been warming to as high as 67 degrees during the middle of the day.
Since the central Gulf Coast has been experiencing ever milder winters, Shipp said permit could possibly become permanent residents.
Within four years, he said they can grow to weights of between 20 and 25 pounds - becoming serious threats to Bollinger's new record along the way.
