Key west flats fishing report by Capt Anthony Skinner

My last few trips have seen an improvement in fishing for both permit and bonefish. While the tarpon fishing has gone down. Hurricane Isaac has passed through and dropped the water temp a few degrees making the flats more comfortable for fish. On the 2nd I fished with Bobby and Jim Havell form North Carolina, We caught the beginning of the incoming tide looking for permit rising with the tide. We landed 2 sharks before we saw the first permit, Jim made several casts before he finally eased off the flat. About 5 minutes later permit started to flow over the flats and after a few more shots we finally hooked up. We had to battle a very determined lemon shark to finally land his first Key west permit but here is the picture. We ended up hooking another permit and landing a barracuda before we finished the day.

9/4 and I had the pleasure of fishing with Ram and Jessica Romiro. We went looking for tarpon in the morning, although we had great tides and I hit several tarpon spots, we did not see any. Bones and permit were up next, we had a shot on the first flat but spooked the bonefish. Ram hooked up on the next flat with a nice 6 pound bone, he would repeat this on the 3rd flat with another nice fish. I found a permit floating in a channel Ram missed his first shot but made the second shot count. We landed this fish after a 15 minute fight and released it to fight another day. The tide started rolling in and we might have had 2 more shots before we were totally washed.