Permit, Trachinotus falcatus

Permit, Trachinotus falcatus, Juvenile. Fish caught from coastal waters off Broward County, Florida, November 2021. Length: 9.5 cm (3.7 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Ben Cantrell, Sebastian, Florida.

Permit, Trachinotus falcatus, Juvenile. Fish caught from coastal waters off Belize, October 2012. Length: 9.8 cm (3.9 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of Josh Leisen (joshadventures.com), Gaylord, Michigan.

Permit, Trachinotus falcatus, Juvenile. Fish caught from coastal waters off Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, March 2023. Length: 11.2 cm (4.4 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of Aidan Perkins, Long Island, New York..

Permit, Trachinotus falcatus. Fish caught from coastal waters off Boca Raton, Florida, April 2023. Length: 16 cm (6.3 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of James LaFontaine, Long Island, New York.

Permit, Trachinotus falcatus. Fish caught from coastal waters off Great Bay, Sint Maarten, June 2015. Length: 18 cm (7.1 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of Ryan Crutchfield, Tampa, Florida.

Permit, Trachinotus falcatus. Underwater photograph taken with coastal waters off Akumal, Quintana Roo, March 2021. Photograph and identification courtesy of Marina Sutormina, Stockholm, Sweden.

The Permit, Trachinotus falcatus, is a member of the Jack or Carangidae Family, and is known in Mexico as  pámpano palometa. Globally, there are twenty species in the genus Trachinotus, of which seven are found in Mexican waters, three in the Atlantic Ocean and four in the Pacific Ocean.

The Permit has a short, deep compressed body with similar upper and lower profiles with juveniles having round profiles and adults have oblong profiles. They have the appearance of being a very tall flat fish with elongated anal and dorsal fins. They are silvery overall being bluish gray dorsally with a dark blotch mid-side and black anal, caudal and pectoral fins. Their head has a blunt snout. Their mouth reaches under the eyes and is equipped with small conical teeth. Their anal fin has two standalone spines, followed by 1 spine and 16 to 19 rays; their caudal fin has a slender base and is deeply forked; their first dorsal fin has 6 short stout spines; their second dorsal fin has 17 to 21 rays; and, their pectoral fins are shorter than their head. The anal and dorsal fin front lobes moderately long with the anal base being the same length as the soft dorsal base.  They have 5 to 7 gill rakers on the top arch and 11 to 14 gill rakers on the lower arch. Their body is covered with oval scales. Their lateral line is straight and does not have scutes.

The Permit is a pelagic, coastal, and epibenthic species that can occur either as solitary individuals (adults) or in small schools. They usually are found in shallow water environments within mangroves and seagrass beds on flats or reefs or over mud bottoms or in deeper waters at depths up to 69 m (225 feet) around wrecks and other deep-water structures. The juveniles can be found in large schools along beach shorelines during summer months. They reach a maximum of 1.49 m (5 feet 11 inches)  in length and 36 kg (79 lbs) in weight. As of January 1, 2024, the International Game Fish Association world record for length stood at 91 cm (3 feet 0 inches) with the fish caught from coastal waters off Miami Beach, Florida in April 2011. The corresponding world record for weight stood at 27.21 kg (60 lbs 0 oz) with the fish caught in coastal waters off Brazil in December 2002. Permits diets change with maturity. As juveniles they consume amphipods, copepods, fish, mysids and larval shrimp. They then transition to insects, mollusks and polychaete worms. As adults they forage on flats and intertidal areas on the incoming tides feeding on barnacles, bivalves, crabs, flatworms, gastropods and sea urchins. In turn they are preyed upon by Barracuda and the Bull, Hammerhead and Lemon Sharks. Reproduction is oviparous with spawning aggregations of 200 to 500 individuals with pelagic eggs and larvae. The young develop quickly until age 5. They have life spans of up to twenty-three years. The Permit is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

The Permit can be confused with the Florida Pompano, Trachinotus carolinus (elongated body; pale fins), and the Palometa, Trachinotus goodei (bars on the sides, very elongated anal and dorsal fins).

The Permit is a resident of all Mexican waters of the Atlantic Ocean including the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Caribbean.

From a conservation perspective the Permit is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are a targeted game fish caught by recreational anglers due to their size but are difficult to catch. In Mexico they are an important component of the commercial artisanal fishery being caught with gill nets and handlines. They are heavily regulated in the southeast United States with size and daily bag limits. Efforts to raise Permit by aquaculture are currently ongoing. They are good table fare but are known to contain ciguatoxin.