Key west flats fishing report by Capt Anthony Skinner.

This report is two for 1, the first a night trip with Justin Neri, the second a full day with Larry bornheimer. The night tarpon trip started at 7:30 and I headed out to the harbor but did not spot any rolling fish. I anchored along a bank that is a feeding route for tarpon and after about 30 minutes Justin had a tarpon smash his pinfish and it was game on. This fish went absolutely berserk before settling into a tug of war that justin won, he landed his first Key west tarpon a nice 60 pounder. The sun set and we moved to a spot that I expected tarpon to be busting shrimp, sure enough we heard a few but it was rather slow. I did pitch a shrimp to a fish close by and we got a few jumps from a juvenile.

The next trip we found some schools of tarpon but could never get set on them so I headed to the flats. Our first shot was at a huge barracuda that almost hit the boat before turning off of the tube lure. The next shot Larry hooked up to a 40 pound lemon sharks that ran out a 100 yards+ of line before slowing down and eventually coming boat side. Jim then hooked another shark moments that he landed. We headed out for permit and this proved very slow but after a while I spotted a tailing fish, Larry and I got out of the boat and headed to the fish. We spotted him crossing a white sand patch and feed him a crab. The Permit streaked off the flat and kept fighting until a lemon shark took of his tail. We retrieved the rest of the fish and got a picture.