The Skittal or Skettel Fly

Been a bit of buzz among permit anglers lately over the Skittal fly, a pattern developed by guide Will Casella at El Pescador’s Ambergris Caye lodge in Belize. The fly is fished with a continuous strip — a technique that seems to be in increasing favor in Belizian and Mexican fisheries. The name comes from a common Caribbean label for a prostitute (“A woman who avoids being thought of as the lowest-level prostitute imaginable by not charging money” according to Skettel.com), continuing the tradition of off-color names for permit flies (e.g. the “merkin”) and reminding us people who fly fish for permit are not what we’d call “mainstreamers.”