The Saturday Letter · Vol. 1 · No. 30
July 20 – July 26, 2026 · July fundamentals · Mexico · 1 of 1 desk · frozen Saturday issue
Permalink: /newsletter/2026-07-25
This week on your coast
Baja peak offshore. Dorado and tuna. Rooster at first light. Yucatan is a shade problem.
This edition is Mexico only — Mexico. Coasts you did not elect stay off this letter. Scores are 1–10. They are not bite guarantees. Read this month’s seasonal fundamentals.
Mexico
Mexico desk
Two oceans
Today
medium
Permit should be the day — Boca Paila and the drains; tarpon live in the darker mouths.
Baja peak offshore. Dorado and tuna. Rooster at first light. Yucatan is a shade problem.
— Tide is outgoing (modeled — no NOAA gauge on this water).
— Partly cloudy. Clouds steal the window on bones and permit.
Open the Ascension briefBox score · July
Tarpon
Mexico
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
Mexico
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
Mexico
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
Mexico
Islamorada to Key West, then the Bahamas and the Spanish Virgins. Patch reefs and the first drop. Absent from Texas bays.
Mangrove / gray snapper
Mexico
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
Mexico
Keys wrecks and Caribbean hard bottom. Not a Texas red. Not a yellowtail in a chum slick.
Lane snapper
Mexico
Nearshore Gulf and Caribbean hard bottom. Texas jetties and the first reefs. Not the federal red-snapper story.
Black grouper
Mexico
Keys, Bahamas, Yucatan, Puerto Rico wrecks. The heavy grouper. Do not print him on Galveston.
King mackerel
Mexico
Texas and Florida summer kings. The beach and the first wrecks. Not a trout. Not a wahoo.
Striped marlin
Mexico
Eastern Pacific. East Cape and the mouth of the Cortez. Absent from Texas, Louisiana, the Keys, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and the Seychelles. Same rule as the rooster: this ocean only.
Roosterfish
Mexico
Eastern Pacific — Baja East Cape and La Paz, Costa Rica, Panama. Absent from Texas, Louisiana, the Keys, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and the Seychelles. Lives on this atlas only on the Mexico Pacific desks.
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 citedCONAPESCA recreational license · current CONAPESCA rules · rolls in 8 days. Sian Ka’an, Contoy, and Espíritu Santo are park or biosphere water. Roosterfish is Baja, not the Gulf.