Tom Pero’s Wildriver Press is this country’s best publisher of useful, historic, angling and field game books. Tom has achieved number one in the field, and there is no number two
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hough each Pero book has an air of tabletop, replete with heft, dimension and stunning photography each is far more than something flipped while having dessert and coffee.
For example, my copy of Andy Mill’s, A Passion for Tarpon has been read in its entirety. And when tarpon season approaches each year, or I head to Belize or Costa Rica, it’s back to school with A Passion for Tarpon. A Passion for Tarpon is a book I never have to ask myself where did I put it? It’s always on my desk.
Tom’s newest open field tackle is about catching El Refuser, the permit. While only one or two authors have ever registered with readers as the expert at catching Trachinotus falcatus, we think A Passion for Permit by Jonathan Olch is just that – and much more.
About:
Jonathan Olch has been fascinated with fishing the saltwater flats for nearly 40 years. His obsession with unlocking the secrets of successfully catching permit drew him like a magnet to the Florida Keys, Belize, the Bahamas, Mexico, Honduras, the Seychelles, Kenya, Venezuela, Turks and Caicos, Bermuda, a spate of Windward and Leeward Islands, Cuba, Australia and elsewhere in search of Atlantic and Indo-Pacific permit. During the 1980s and 1990s, Olch wrote revealing articles about what he was learning about catching permit for various fly-fishing publications. For vast chunks of the past decade, Jonathan has obsessively chased permit with a fly rod and camera while based aboard his personal catamaran in Belize, Honduras, and Florida. Olch is an innovative fly tier. He generously shares his techniques for constructing his exquisite and effective crab patterns in a highly detailed chapter that alone is worth the price of admission—and may send some secretive guides over the edge!
Few anglers have caught more permit on a fly or are more qualified to write this landmark book. Olch is the holder of the current IGFA 20-pound-tippet class world-record Atlantic permit, a fish caught and released in Key West, Florida.
Review by Andy Mill, author of A Passion for Tarpon
“Jon Olch has traveled the fly-fishing world for nearly four decades, devoting his hundreds of trips almost exclusively to permit. Personally, between you and me, I have a hunch this is evidence he should be sent to a padded room and administered drugs! But in his obsessive pursuit of the permit, Olch has succeeded in capturing what it takes to consistently catch permit, along with the way polishing all the gazillion little pieces that add up to becoming a world-class angler. Now his incredibly hard-won knowledge is all yours. Congratulations, Jon—this is a masterpiece.”
