This weekend was the Mercury Redbone S.L.A.M tournament in Key West. Last year the tournament was moved because of some ominous hurricane headed our way… I forget his or her name but I think we left town once again. Anyway, I didn’t get the chance to fish the tournament because my angler couldn’t make it on the rescheduled days. I made up for it this year and had some great guys in my boat who were great fishing partners and just plain fun to be around.

The first day I traveled far for a few shots at bonefish and after prefishing a few days before I knew it would be a tougher tournament due to some dirty water almost everywhere I traveled. We ended up with one bonefish the first day on fly and saw several other large bones. The second day was perfectly calm and clear and the water had cleared up a bit too. We hit the tarpon holes early and jumped quite a few and landed one on fly. The tarpon fishing was so good that it was almost difficult to leave the spot and move on to the other species and try to complete the slam.

We ended up landing a permit on a live crab and hooking another permit that got away. It was certainly a day for the record for me. We walked away as the Fly Division Champs!

The Redbone is a great organization that puts on these tournaments in hope to find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis. You can find out more about the organization and their tournament series at http://www.redbone.org.