Chapter 1: A Legend in the Making’
‘Fast Eddie’ McCall was not what you’d call a legend. Not yet anyway. But he was working on it. He had his Mirage HPX, his Costas, a few sponsors, a Yeti cooler that he found floating in Key West Harbor, and a dog-eared copy of Ninety-Two in the Shade. He kept the book in his gear bag, on top, visible to impress clients, so they might think he read Thomas McGuane. He also had a girlfriend, Wren, a bartender and a single mom with a raspy voice from Stock Island who knew better than to believe half of what he said but liked him anyway. She was a Key West native with a wild streak and a past full of stories nobody told in polite company. She also knew a lot of the local charter captains, biblically, professionally, and in a few cases, judicially.
If there really was a flats guide rating system, and Eddie often suspected there was, whispered among the older captains at the dock, he sat somewhere in the bottom third. A solid C-plus captain with a knack for telling stories, an aversion to early mornings, a taste for good weed, coke, or rum at any time, and a deeply held belief that a fishing guide should never be judged by what his clients catch.
The nickname ‘Fast Eddie’ came early on in his ten-year career. Eddie usually splashed his skiff at the marina before dawn, especially during tarpon season. One morning, he idled a few hundred feet off the dock to “take care of business.” He’d forgotten to put the plug in, and by the time he pulled his shorts back up, he had almost a foot and a half of water sloshing around in the back of the skiff. He gunned his skiff lightning fast toward the boat ramp, lost his push pole somewhere along the way, and beached the boat squarely on the concrete so he could start bailing. He spent the better part of the morning with a five-gallon bucket from Home Depot while his clients took photos and texted their wives. The boat didn’t sink, but whatever dignity he launched with sure did. The nickname stuck.
Chapter 2: The Birth of the Permit King
The story started, as these things often do, in a bar. Sloppy Joe’s, maybe. Or Captain Tony’s. Eddie could never remember which one. He was three drinks in, holding court over a couple of so-called adventure travel influencers with their Patagonia backpacks and cameras on the bar stools next to them, and then the lie came out.
“I stuck a world-record permit last week,” Eddie said, leaning against the bar like he’d just remembered something worth mentioning. “On the fly. Marquesas. Solo. On a secret crab, I tied myself.”
The young couple leaned in, he with polite interest, she with a sparkle that meant the story might end up on her feed.
“Do you have any proof?” she asked, already thumbing her phone.
Eddie blinked, like she’d just asked if he kept his catch in a cooler. “Proof? You think I’d kill a fish like that for an IGFA record? Some things are too beautiful to hang on a scale or post online.”
He said it casually, like it was no big deal. He sipped his drink and let the silence do the rest.
But the couple he was talking to, a young, good-looking, husband-and-wife team, had reach. Mostly the wife, if we’re being honest. By the next morning, her blonde hair, bikini-clad, sun-kissed, slow-motion retelling of “The Permit King” had racked up views faster than a tarpon visiting a palolo worm hatch.
He said it casually, like it was no big deal. Eddie changed his voicemail to “You’ve reached the Permit King,” slapped a few stickers on his skiff, and started tying a line of permit crabs, flies he called Crown Jewels. He even got them stocked at the local fly shop, The Angling Company. They looked ridiculous. But they sold anyway.
Chapter 3: Trouble on the Horizon
Weeks later, Capt. Rider Monroe rolled into town like a sponsored hurricane, camera crew in tow, a skiff that looked fast even sitting on the trailer, and an Instagram following that could fill the amphitheater at Bayfront Park. Born and raised in Homestead, Rider was thirty-two, short, tan, cocky, and an irritatingly good angler. He was the kind of guy who wore a buff in his profile picture and said things like “Let’s collab” without irony. His dad had been a guide too, an actual TV fishing host, back when that meant something. Mustache, catchphrase, a decent boat, and a surprisingly good show for its time. Rider was a chip off the block, just with better lighting, worse music, and a lot more time spent on his phone.
He’d heard the rumors, seen the Instagram buzz, and smelled blood in the water. To him, Eddie wasn’t a seasoned local guide. He was content. And Rider had views to chase.
“Permit shootout,” Rider said, leaning over the rail at the Hogfish Bar while a YouTuber filmed him sipping a craft cocktail. “You and me. Between here and the Marquesas. One day. One fish. One crown.”
Eddie froze. It was supposed to be a joke, a one-off bar tale that inflated with the tide and drifted away like most fishing lies do. But now it was public. Recorded. Hashtagged, and he was a prisoner of his own lie. If there were only a fishing guide’s Wall of Shame.
Wren, working at the bar that night, just shook her head. “Hope you tied more than one of those crabs, Kingie.”
Eddie didn’t respond. He was already checking Weather Underground, making a mental list of excuses, and wondering if he still had that fake permit tail from a photoshoot back in 2017.
This wasn’t going to be just another day on the flats.
Chapter 4: The Setup
Eddie woke up the morning after the bar challenge with a hangover and two missed calls from clients he hadn’t fished with in a year. The word was out.
Rider Monroe’s Instagram story was already circulating, complete with slow-motion cheers, a hashtag barrage, and a poll asking “Who’s your Permit King?” Eddie was losing 78% to 22%.
At the marina, Wren handed him coffee and a look that said she was reconsidering most of her life choices. “He’s got drone footage, a camera crew, and a logo. You’ve got a half-tied fly and that foam permit tail.”
Eddie grunted. “I’ve also got hustle, and I don’t need all that crap.”
“You’ve got sunscreen in your ear.”
Eddie spent the day walking the docks at the marina, trying to drum up support. A few guides offered half-hearted nods. Most laughed. But a couple of old-school guys who didn’t care for influencers said they might come watch if there was beer.
That night, he sat on his skiff with a notepad, planning the kind of event that could pass for a tournament. If he could turn this thing into something official, with rules, structure, and maybe even a prize, he could level the playing field. Or at least make Rider fight for the spotlight.
Chapter 6: Rules, Rigs, and Red Flags
Wren said it best: “You want to make this real, it has to feel real.”
So, Eddie did what any semi-delusional guide would do: print up a flyer, book a back room at Turtle Kraals, and declared it the official rules meeting for the inaugural (and probably only) two angler Key West Permit Invitational.
Like most fishing competitions, it was part tournament, part ego contest, part live-streamed trainwreck. Eddie brought in a buddy from the dockmasters’ office to serve as the tournament director, complete with a clipboard, a borrowed security badge from Fantasy Fest, and a fake permit number that started with “XFL-420.” It was just enough to keep people from laughing him off the dock, at least not to his face.
The meeting had everything: overcooked conch fritters, laminated rule sheets, and a borrowed projector that played a shaky drone flyover of the Marquesas on loop. There would be a shotgun start at sunrise from Garrison Bight. Catch and release only. Fly only, no bait. Photos required. One mandatory witness in each skiff.
Rider Monroe, naturally, showed up late. He walked in wearing a pastel sports coat and boat shoes with no socks, filmed his entrance for his Instagram reel, and sat in the back with his camera crew like he was hosting the Met Gala.
Eddie stood at the front of the room with a whiteboard and a dry-erase marker that barely worked. “Let’s keep this clean, boys,” he said. “No drones over the flats. And let’s try to avoid fistfights at the ramp. We’re on camera, after all.”
The room chuckled.
But under the surface, it was getting serious. This wasn’t just about a fish. It was about saving face, settling scores, and maybe, just maybe, putting the Permit King back on the map.
Chapter 7: Tournament Day
Dawn broke hot, still, and stupid with anticipation. The kind of morning where the air smelled like old chum and sunscreen, and everything felt like it might go sideways.
Eddie arrived at Garrison Bight looking like he hadn’t slept, because he hadn’t. He’d spent half the night organizing and washing his skiff, tying leaders, and trying to get a second GoPro to hold a charge. It didn’t. He brought it anyway.
Rider Monroe rolled in with a drone buzzing overhead and a protein shake that cost more than most skiff batteries. His skiff looked like a floating NASCAR, plastered with sponsors no one had heard of and hashtags that stretched from bow to stern. #MonroeMethod #PermitChallenge #PermitKing #CatchFeelingsNotBait
The tournament director showed up five minutes late, out of breath, and holding a clipboard with nothing on it. “We good?” he asked.
Eddie and Rider stood side by side at the dock. Wren, perched on a nearby piling with coffee and a smirk, called out, “Gentlemen, start your egos.”
With a half-hearted horn blast from a borrowed conch shell, they were off.
Eddie pointed the HPX west and opened it up. The skiff groaned like it wasn’t thrilled to be part of this stunt, but it ran. He wasn’t aiming for fish, at least not yet. He was aiming for the theater.
He stopped at a wide flat near Woman Key, where he’d recently seen three permit tailing before the wind turned and a tourist dropped an anchor on them. He staked out, rigged up, and waited.
An hour passed.
Then another.
The only things trailing were the tips of wings from a pair of spotted eagle rays.
Eddie checked his phone. Rider had already posted three stories, one reel, and a slow-mo hero shot of himself fake-casting with the caption “Locked in. #PermitPursuit.”
He took a deep breath and told himself this wasn’t about the fish anymore.
Chapter 7: The King, Crowned
By noon, the heat was punishing. Eddie was on his second energy bar, third can of Red Bull, and had started talking to his fly rod like it was an old friend who owed him money.
Then it happened.
A school of permit, real ones, not dreams or jacks or shadows, pushed across the flat like ghosts with purpose. Eddie froze. His hands worked on their own, a perfect cast arcing through the air like it had been waiting all day for this one moment.
The crab fly landed.
The lead fish turned.
And in what could only be described as divine trolling from the universe, the permit ate.
Eddie strip-set like he was pulling a manhole cover off Duval Street. The fish took off, the reel screamed, and he started laughing like a lunatic.
Wren, watching from a skiff a hundred yards off, screamed louder than the drag.
Rider’s drone, conveniently overhead, caught the whole thing.
Ten minutes later, with shaky hands and a witness count of two, Wren and the tournament director measured the fish, took a dozen photos from every angle, and confirmed it was huge. Not a record, but huge. Eddie released the permit back into the sea and stood up like he’d just disarmed a bomb.
Rider had nothing. Not even a follow-up post. He’d hooked one jack off the back of a ray around mid-morning, filmed it from three angles, and tried to make it look intentional, but nobody was buying it.
At the awards dinner that night, with plastic folding tables, grocery store cake, and a lukewarm keg of beer, Eddie was handed a homemade trophy. It was a spray-painted crab claw zip-tied to a piece of driftwood. The room cheered. Someone tried to start a chant.
Eddie raised the claw. “Thanks,” he said. “This proves nothing.”
The crowd laughed. But quietly, some of them started deleting their hashtags.
And just like that, the Permit King had earned his crown.
Sort of.
Epilogue
The following week, Eddie didn’t post a single thing. No reels, no stories, no hashtags. He took his skiff out solo, caught a few jacks, and didn’t tell a soul. The foam-core permit tail was retired to the shed, hung on a rusty nail next to a broken push pole and a sun-bleached copy of the rules.
Rider moved on to the next campaign. He started a bonefish challenge in the Bahamas with a line of SPF hoodies called “Bones & Glory.” Eddie watched the teaser trailer and didn’t say a word.
At the dock, people still called him Permit King, mostly as a joke. But a few meant it. And every now and then, someone would ask what fly he used.
He always smiled and said, “Crown Jewel, version 1.0. Tied it myself.”
Wren would just roll her eyes and pour another round.