The Saturday Letter · Vol. 1 · No. 29

Week of the water

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

Permalink: /newsletter/2026-07-18

This week on your coast

Galveston

8.3

Redfish are the hunt — push West and East Bay grass as the wind lets water back in. Heat is the clock — first light or last light.

Bathtub bays. Night and first-light reds. Trout in guts and over deep grass. Beach tarpon if you already know the water.

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

Texas

That Saturday

Texas desk

Galveston

Wind is the tide

Today

high

Redfish are the hunt — push West and East Bay grass as the wind lets water back in. Heat is the clock — first light or last light.

Bathtub bays. Night and first-light reds. Trout in guts and over deep grass. Beach tarpon if you already know the water.

Water.: 5 mph SW · 1% rain · 91°F water
Tide.: incoming · -0.2 ft vs the table
Moon.: Waxing gibbous · mid
Window.: Incoming water — Moving water in the right part of the day.

5.2Redfish5.2Speckled trout

— Tide is incoming from NOAA.

— Observed water is close to the astronomical prediction — the table is telling the truth today.

Open the Galveston brief

Box score · July

In peak this month

Tarpon
Texas
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.
Mangrove / gray snapper
Texas
The snapper that will live in a Texas jetty and a Keys creek. Schoolies on structure. Bigger fish on the wrecks. Not a yellowtail.
Red snapper
Texas
Gulf wrecks and snapper banks. Texas and Louisiana live on this fish in a short federal window. Not a Galveston grass headline. Not a Keys yellowtail.
Lane snapper
Texas
Nearshore Gulf and Caribbean hard bottom. Texas jetties and the first reefs. Not the federal red-snapper story.
Tripletail
Texas
Summer Gulf. Traps, weed, and channel markers. Texas and Louisiana live on this fish. Not a wreck grouper.
King mackerel
Texas
Texas and Florida summer kings. The beach and the first wrecks. Not a trout. Not a wahoo.

Noise, not the headline: Jack crevalle.

Rules

Closed or closing

No coast-wide harvest closure is on the board this week. Still verify before you keep a fish.

July by region, type, and species

Regs citedTPWD Outdoor Annual · Sep 1, 2025–Aug 31, 2026 · rolls in 8 days. Texas bag and season roll every September 1. The stamp is the book we cited, not a license.