Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
A grand slam means a bonefish, a permit and a tarpon in the same day, and the Florida Keys give up the most of them from late summer through November. Fall brings stable weather, thinner guide traffic, cheaper rooms, a lesser known run of large tarpon, and steady permit fishing.
Bruce Chard is a Florida Keys flats guide and casting instructor who designed the Grand Slam saltwater fly line and has been guiding permit, tarpon and bonefish for roughly three decades.
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When is the best time of year to fish for a grand slam in the Keys?
Late summer through November produces the most grand slams, with bonefish, permit and tarpon all available on the same day, and a snook on top of that makes it a super slam. The March through early June window draws guides from other states for the big tarpon run, which means competition for space on the water and higher hotel rates. From mid-July through November the pressure disappears, rooms are cheaper, and the weather is stable, which is what makes the fishing predictable. Spring cold fronts bring shifts in wind velocity and large temperature swings, and the fish get fidgety under them.
Why does a saltwater fly line need a short front taper?
Permit fishing means throwing heavy weighted crab patterns on a long leader into hard tropical wind, and older saltwater lines fought the angler on both counts. Those lines ran a six to eight foot front taper ending in a small diameter tip, and mass is what holds energy: the thinner the tip gets, the less energy the line can carry through to the leader. Cutting the front taper back to almost nothing leaves a thick, large-diameter connection at the end of the belly, so the energy from the cast dumps straight into the leader instead of bleeding away over eight feet of thin taper. That matters on the presentation cast and just as much on the back cast, where a leader that fails to straighten eats up the next stroke.
What causes a hinge between fly line and leader?
A hinge comes from a mismatch, not from the knot. If the leader butt section is too small in diameter or not stiff enough to match the end of the fly line, the connection hinges regardless of whether it is a loop knot, a nail knot or anything else. The hinge throws slack into the system, and slack means the energy never reaches the fly, so the line, leader and fly do not lay out straight. Matching a stiff butt section to a thick line tip is what makes a system turn over in 25-mile-an-hour wind.
Why does the rear taper of a fly line matter for saltwater casting?
The rear taper is the haul zone, the section that needs to stay connected to the rod tip while false casting, because energy does not transfer smoothly from a small diameter running line up into a large diameter belly. Lines designed in the early 1990s carried rear tapers only six to eight feet long, which left almost no margin for error. Building an 18-foot rear taper gives the caster far more room to stay connected to the rod tip and keep transferring energy into the belly. The running line was also made slightly smaller in diameter, which cuts friction through the guides and makes shooting line noticeably easier.
Should you overline a saltwater fly rod?
Overlining solves a loading problem. A true-weight line on a true-weight rod requires carrying a lot of line outside the rod tip before the rod loads enough to make a cast, and flats fishing rarely gives you that time. Putting an 11-weight line on a 10-weight rod, or a 10-weight on a 9-weight, lets the rod load on a 30 or 35 foot shot. A blind test with labels covered on five rods and reels ended with every angler choosing an overlined combination; some picked lines two sizes heavy, and nobody chose an underlined rod. Very experienced casters can make the adjustments an equal-weight line demands, but most anglers cannot.
How far do you actually need to cast on the flats?
Fifty feet is the number that matters. Most anglers cannot see a fish beyond about 50 feet, and this is a sight fishing game, so casting distance beyond your seeing distance buys nothing. At 70 or 80 feet it becomes hard to judge where the fly is relative to the fish, hard to read the fish's movements, and hard to get a hook home because of stretch in the line and leader. Flats species have hard, bony mouths with few soft spots, so a poor hook set at distance is often a lost fish. An angler who can lay the line, leader and fly out straight at 50 feet on both the forward and back cast will convert a very high percentage of the shots he gets.
Why do anglers pull the fly out of a tarpon's mouth?
The trout set is an automatic reflex, and tarpon fishing is visual enough to trigger it. A tarpon's bottom jaw closes up over the top of its mouth, and an angler standing high on a casting platform who lifts the rod is at exactly the wrong angle: the fly comes straight back out between the lips. The fix is to keep stripping until the fly comes tight inside the fish's mouth, and only then set. Because the visual is so dramatic, anglers react to what they see rather than to what they feel, which is why the mistake happens even to people who know better.
What is the picnic table analogy for setting the hook on tarpon?
Lay a 12-foot tarpon leader with a 1/0 fly at the end across an old, rough wooden picnic table and try to bury the hook in the wood. Strip it fast from a dead stop and the hook skates across the top without catching anything. Strip long, slow and steady and the hook bounces and curls around the edges of the grain until it finally grabs, and only then can you set. A tarpon's mouth works the same way: after it closes its lips on the leader, the fly is dangling loose inside a very large mouth, and there is nothing to set into until you come tight to something.
Where does the hook need to land to actually land a tarpon?
About 80 percent of a tarpon's mouth is hard bone, and no angler is strong enough to drive a hook through the crushers in its throat. Roughly 90 percent of landed tarpon are hooked in one of two places: the upper lip, where the monofilament sits over the top, or the pocket of soft cartilage in the cheek, the same place your finger goes if you push into your own cheek with your mouth open. That is why striking hard the moment a tarpon eats and turns is counterproductive. Staying tight with steady but moderate pressure and letting the fish take line lets the hook slide across bone and find one of the soft spots, and the landing odds go up sharply from there.
Key takeaways
- Fish the Keys from mid-July through November for the most grand slam chances, less guide pressure, cheaper rooms and more stable weather.
- A short, thick front taper preserves casting energy into the leader; a long thin front taper is designed to shed it.
- Match leader butt diameter and stiffness to the fly line tip, or the connection hinges no matter which knot you use.
- An 18-foot rear taper keeps the haul zone connected to the rod tip while false casting, versus the six to eight feet older lines carried.
- Overline the rod a size to load it on short, quick shots; blind testing showed anglers consistently prefer the heavier line.
- Build your casting around a straight 50-foot delivery on both forward and back cast rather than chasing 80-foot distance.
- Keep stripping until you come tight before setting on a tarpon, and stay tight with moderate pressure so the hook slides into soft cartilage rather than bone.
