The Saturday Letter · Vol. 1 · No. 29
July 13 – July 19, 2026 · July fundamentals · Puerto Rico · 1 of 1 desk · frozen Saturday issue
Permalink: /newsletter/2026-07-18
This week on your coast
Midsummer. Night and first-light tarpon. Mahi if the weed is in. Do not invent a bonefish morning in Condado.
This edition is Puerto Rico only — Puerto Rico. Coasts you did not elect stay off this letter. Scores are 1–10. They are not bite guarantees. Read this month’s seasonal fundamentals.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico desk
Urban tarpon, then the drop
Today
high
Tarpon should be the day — Condado and the bay — urban tarpon, then the north drop if you switched to Offshore.
Midsummer. Night and first-light tarpon. Mahi if the weed is in. Do not invent a bonefish morning in Condado.
— Tide is incoming from NOAA.
— The gauge is +0.40 ft off the predicted table — read the water, not just the printout.
Open the San Juan briefBox score · July
Tarpon
Puerto Rico
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
Puerto Rico
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
Puerto Rico
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
Puerto Rico
Islamorada to Key West, then the Bahamas and the Spanish Virgins. Patch reefs and the first drop. Absent from Texas bays.
Mangrove / gray snapper
Puerto Rico
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
Puerto Rico
Keys wrecks and Caribbean hard bottom. Not a Texas red. Not a yellowtail in a chum slick.
Lane snapper
Puerto Rico
Nearshore Gulf and Caribbean hard bottom. Texas jetties and the first reefs. Not the federal red-snapper story.
Black grouper
Puerto Rico
Keys, Bahamas, Yucatan, Puerto Rico wrecks. The heavy grouper. Do not print him on Galveston.
Noise, not the headline: Jack crevalle, Great barracuda.
Rules
No coast-wide harvest closure is on the board this week. Still verify before you keep a fish.
July by region, type, and speciesRegs citedDNER Puerto Rico · current DNER recreational rules · rolls in 8 days. This is DNER water, not FWC. Do not paste a Jupiter snook closure onto Condado.