The Florida Keys Grand Slam

A flats grand slam is tarpon, bonefish and permit in one day. The Florida Keys is where people attempt it, because all three share the same water — which is genuinely unusual.

What nobody puts in the same place is that the three fish are governed by three entirely different rulebooks, and one of them closes in the Keys during exactly the months the fishing is best.

The three rulebooks

Checked with FWC on 5 September 2026. Rules change; the agency is the authority and this page is not.

Bonefish: there is no size limit, because there is no harvest

FWC made bonefish a catch-and-release fishery on 1 September 2013. There is nothing to measure and nothing to keep.

On the same date FWC also prohibited the use of a multiple hook with live or dead natural bait to take or attempt to take bonefish — so a treble under a shrimp is not a legal presentation for them.

Practically, that is the right rule for the fish anyway. Bonefish live in water "often less than one foot deep", per FWC, over seagrass flats and white sand, in small schools hunting shrimp and crabs. A fish in a foot of water is a fish you are hunting by sight, and one you can return in seconds.

The Florida state record — 16 lb 3 oz — was caught near Islamorada, in the Keys.

→ Bonefish species profile

Permit: the rule that changes at a line on the map

This is the one that catches people, and it is worth getting exactly right.

The Special Permit Zone (SPZ) covers all state and adjacent federal waters south of a line running due east from Cape Florida in the Atlantic, Biscayne Bay south of the Rickenbacker Causeway, and waters south of a line just south of Cape Sable running west. That includes the whole of the Florida Keys.

Two different fisheries, one species, and the boundary is a line of latitude.

And the timing is the cruel part

FWC's own research puts the most productive months for recreational permit fishing at March through June, with a peak in April — and notes this "coincides with the start of permit spawning season."

The closure runs 1 April to 31 July.

So in the Keys, the best permit fishing of the year happens almost entirely inside the closed season. That is not an accident: FWC created the zone in 2011 specifically to protect adult spawning aggregations, and permit are vulnerable precisely because, as FWC puts it, they "form large schools that will gather by reefs and wrecks for days at a time."

If you are chasing permit in the Keys in spring, you are fishing catch and release whether you intended to or not.

FWC also records a second peak from November through January, when permit gather at warm-water areas such as power plant outflows.

→ Permit species profile

Tarpon: the tag

Tarpon are the most visible of the three and the most familiar. Florida requires a tarpon tag to harvest or possess one, and the fishery is otherwise catch and release — in practice, essentially all flats tarpon fishing is release fishing.

Tarpon rules have changed over the years, so check the current FWC position rather than an older article.

→ Tarpon species profile · How to catch tarpon in Florida

What a slam actually demands

Three fish that share water but not much else:

• Bonefish — small schools, very shallow, spooky. Sight fishing.
• Permit — selective on the flats, schooling on wrecks. Crabs.
• Tarpon — big, visible, and the one that will break tackle.

Most attempts fail on the permit. That is the common experience and the rules reflect the same reality: it is the species FWC has ring-fenced with its own zone.

The practical version is that a slam is a guided-boat proposition on a good tide with light wind, not something to plan a trip around. Chase one fish properly and treat a slam as a thing that occasionally happens.

Before you go

Wind decides the flats. You cannot sight-fish water you cannot see into, and a stiff breeze ends it. Our live conditions tool pulls current wind, water temperature and tide times for the Keys from the nearest NOAA stations, with any active National Weather Service warnings.

And check the rules on the day. Every figure on this page is dated and linked below. Florida saltwater regulations change, and the SPZ boundary and closure are exactly the sort of detail that older articles get wrong.

Related

• Florida Keys — the destination in full
• Bonefish · Permit · Tarpon
• How to catch tarpon in Florida
• Live conditions in the Keys

Sources

• Bonefish recreational regulations — Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission — that bonefish is a catch-and-release fishery as of 1 September 2013, and that using a multiple hook with live or dead natural bait to take or attempt to take bonefish was prohibited on the same date.
• Bonefish species profile — FWC — identification, habitat in water often less than one foot deep over seagrass flats, diet, sizes, and the 16 lb 3 oz state record near Islamorada.
• Permit recreational regulations — FWC — the Special Permit Zone boundaries; inside the zone a 22 in fork length minimum, 1 per harvester, no more than 2 per vessel, closed 1 April–31 July; outside the zone an 11–22 in slot, 2 per harvester with 1 allowed over 22 in, open year-round.
• A Review of Florida's Permit Fishery — FWC research — most productive recreational months March through June peaking in April, coinciding with the start of spawning season; a secondary peak November through January at warm-water areas; that permit form large schools gathering by reefs and wrecks for days at a time; and that the zone was created in 2011 to protect the species.