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The Saturday Letter · Vol. 1 · No. 29

Week of the water

July 13 – July 19, 2026 · July fundamentals · Bahamas · 1 of 1 desk · frozen Saturday issue

Permalink: /newsletter/2026-07-18

This week on your coast

Andros

7.2

Permit should be the day — west-side white sand — schools, then the double-digit singles.

Schoolie bones and resident tarpon. The lodge week is a heat-management problem as much as a fish problem.

This edition is Bahamas only — Bahamas. Coasts you did not elect stay off this letter. Scores are 1–10. They are not bite guarantees. Read this month’s seasonal fundamentals.

Bahamas

That Saturday

Bahamas desk

Andros

Bonefish country

7.2OF 10

Today

medium

Permit should be the day — west-side white sand — schools, then the double-digit singles.

Schoolie bones and resident tarpon. The lodge week is a heat-management problem as much as a fish problem.

Water.
wind quiet
Tide.
incoming
Moon.
Waxing gibbous · mid
Window.
Incoming water — Water is moving, but the clock is against you — heat or dark.
6.6Tarpon6.6Permit

— Tide is incoming (modeled — no NOAA gauge on this water).

— Waxing gibbous moon — mid tide range. Sight water often prefers a moderate range and clean water over a huge spring.

Open the Andros brief

Box score · July

In peak this month

  • Tarpon

    Bahamas

    Keys migratory peak Apr–May. Boca Grande Pass is the spring stack. Jupiter inlet and beach. Texas beach/passes mid-summer. Venice south passes in the heat. Bahamas: resident fish in bights Apr–Oct.

  • Permit

    Bahamas

    None in Texas. Keys mecca — flats, banks, wrecks. Bahamas west sides May–Oct. Puerto Rico: east-island banks, not Condado. Seychelles 'permit' is often the Indo-Pacific fish (Trachinotus blochii) — same job, different ocean.

  • Hogfish

    Bahamas

    Keys and Caribbean patch reefs. Not a Texas bay fish. Not a bonefish headline. He lives on the hard bottom, not the grass.

  • Yellowtail snapper

    Bahamas

    Islamorada to Key West, then the Bahamas and the Spanish Virgins. Patch reefs and the first drop. Absent from Texas bays.

  • Mangrove / gray snapper

    Bahamas

    The snapper that will live in a Texas jetty and a Keys creek. Schoolies on structure. Bigger fish on the wrecks. Not a yellowtail.

  • Mutton snapper

    Bahamas

    Keys wrecks and Caribbean hard bottom. Not a Texas red. Not a yellowtail in a chum slick.

  • Black grouper

    Bahamas

    Keys, Bahamas, Yucatan, Puerto Rico wrecks. The heavy grouper. Do not print him on Galveston.

Noise, not the headline: Jack crevalle, Great barracuda.

Regs citedBahamas flats and bonefish rules · current Bahamas guidance · rolls in 7 days. Catch-and-release is the culture on the bonefish flats. No NOAA gauge. No invented holes.