Bonefish, tarpon, permit: the Keys grand slam, explained

Three fish. One day. A bonefish, a tarpon, and a permit, all landed inside 24 hours, all from the same angler. That's a grand slam. Add a snook and it's a super slam. Add a swordfish and it's a fantasy slam that almost nobody has done legitimately.

Most anglers — including most full-time guides — go years between slams. Some never get one. The reason is that the three species don't live in the same water, don't eat the same food, and don't reward the same kind of angler. You're not just trying to catch three fish. You're trying to be three different fishermen in one day.

Bonefish — the ghost

Albula vulpes. The Keys bonefish runs 3 to 7 pounds on average — smaller than the Bahamas average, larger on individual fish. The state-record bonefish was set off Islamorada on March 19, 2007 by Robert Schroeder: 16 pounds 3 ounces, on a live shrimp. They live in 1 to 4 feet of water on the flats — white sand patches and turtle grass, often within sight of US-1. They eat shrimp and small crabs. They are arguably the fastest fish in saltwater per pound: a 5-pound bonefish will dump 100 yards of backing in under 15 seconds when it's spooked, and you will not stop it.

Why it's hard: the bonefish sees you before you see it. The shot is usually 50 to 70 feet, with a 12-foot leader, into wind, with a fly the size of your thumbnail, leading the fish by 6 to 8 feet so the fly lands without spooking it and is on the bottom when the fish gets there. One strip. Pause. Maybe one more strip. If the fish doesn't eat, you don't get a second shot — by the time you've picked up to cast again, the fish is on the next flat.

Tarpon — the Silver King

Megalops atlanticus. The Florida Keys tarpon runs 50 to 150+ pounds on the migratory fish. Resident fish range smaller. They live in deeper structure — bridge pilings, channel cuts, the basins of Florida Bay, the deep edges of flats — and feed on the same flats as the bonefish on a moving tide. They eat baitfish, crabs, shrimp, and on the right night, palolo worms. They jump 4 to 6 feet out of the water. They land at a rate of about 1 in 5 hookups.

Why it's hard: a tarpon will eat. The challenge is keeping it on. The bony, hard-plate mouth refuses most hook sets. The jumps shake hooks loose. The runs are toward bridge pilings or coral heads that cut leaders. A 150-pound fish can be fought for 90 minutes and still escape at the boat. For the season-by-season breakdown, see tarpon season.

Permit — the picky one

Trachinotus falcatus. The Keys permit runs 5 to 30 pounds on the flats, with bigger fish offshore on wrecks. They live in mixed water — hard sand with rubble, the edges of grass flats, and the channel edges near bridges. They eat crabs. Almost exclusively crabs. Live, dead, fly imitation of a crab — a crab. They will refuse the best presentation you've ever made nine times out of ten and then eat a worse one on the tenth because the wind shifted.

Why it's hard: permit are smart, picky, and educated. The fly has to land softly, lead them by exactly the right distance, sink at the right rate, and either move once or not at all. A bad cast spooks them. A good cast often spooks them. Catching a permit on a fly is widely considered the hardest sustained achievement in flats fishing. Catching one on the same day you've caught a bonefish and a tarpon is the achievement that makes the grand slam mythical.

Islamorada's claim

The grand slam, as a tradition, is tied to Islamorada. The town has called itself the sportfishing capital of the world since at least the 1950s. The Cheeca Lodge era — the late-50s through mid-60s — built the flats-guide tradition here. The Don Hawley Foundation, founded after the death of the longtime Keys guide Don Hawley, supports retired guides and is named for a man who poled clients to slams across decades. The annual Don Hawley Invitational Tarpon Tournament is one of the longest-running events in the sport.

There are slams from elsewhere — Belize gets permit, the Bahamas gets bonefish in volume, Costa Rica gets tarpon. But the slam as a named achievement, with bones and tarpon and permit on a single day from a single skiff in the same general body of water, is a Keys idea first and an Islamorada idea specifically.

The math

Run the numbers. On a typical guided day on the flats, a competent angler with a competent guide gets maybe 10 to 20 quality shots at fish across all species. Conversion rates run roughly 1 in 3 for bonefish, 1 in 5 for tarpon, and 1 in 20 for permit. Multiply that out and you'd expect, on any given day with a representative shot count, a bonefish on about 90% of days, a tarpon on about 40 to 60% of days, and a permit on about 10 to 20% of days.

The joint probability of all three on the same day is therefore in the single digits, even for a strong angler on the right water in the right month. A full-time Islamorada guide running 250 days a year might see 5 to 15 slams a year across all their clients. An angler who fishes the Keys 10 days a year might never see one.

“You're not trying to catch three fish. You're trying to be three different fishermen in one day.”

Closing

The honest report on slams: most of the people who tell you they've gotten one have. The number is small, but the tradition is too specific and too witnessed for serious bullshit to last. If you've gotten one, the guide saw it, the photo got taken, the bar at Lorelei knows by 6 p.m.

If you're hunting one, fish the Bay in May or June. Take a guide. Don't fish for the slam — fish for the next shot, and let the slam happen if it happens. For where the tarpon are by month, the tarpon-season piece is the prerequisite.