The Saturday Letter · Vol. 1 · No. 32
August 3 – August 9, 2026 · August fundamentals · Florida · 1 of 1 desk · frozen Saturday issue
Permalink: /newsletter/2026-08-08
This week on your coast
Snook still closed — Boca through September, Jupiter through August. Bones at first light. Thunder by two.
This edition is Florida only — Florida. Coasts you did not elect stay off this letter. Scores are 1–10. They are not bite guarantees. Read this month’s seasonal fundamentals.
Florida
Florida desk
Educated fish, short windows
Today
medium
Permit should be the day — oceanside permit and bones, or Channel 5 current — not a Texas marsh sentence.
Snook still closed — Boca through September, Jupiter through August. Bones at first light. Thunder by two.
— Tide is incoming (modeled — the NOAA gauge did not answer).
— Thunderstorms · 33%. Lightning is a stay-tied call.
Open the Islamorada briefBox score · August
Hogfish
Florida
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
Florida
Islamorada to Key West, then the Bahamas and the Spanish Virgins. Patch reefs and the first drop. Absent from Texas bays.
Mangrove / gray snapper
Florida
The snapper that will live in a Texas jetty and a Keys creek. Schoolies on structure. Bigger fish on the wrecks. Not a yellowtail.
Lane snapper
Florida
Nearshore Gulf and Caribbean hard bottom. Texas jetties and the first reefs. Not the federal red-snapper story.
Tripletail
Florida
Summer Gulf. Traps, weed, and channel markers. Texas and Louisiana live on this fish. Not a wreck grouper.
King mackerel
Florida
Texas and Florida summer kings. The beach and the first wrecks. Not a trout. Not a wahoo.
Noise, not the headline: Jack crevalle, Great barracuda.
Rules
SE Florida snook (Jupiter, Keys, Biscayne)
Typically closed Dec 15–Jan 31 and June 1–Aug 31. Catch-and-release is still fishing. Do not harvest a snook because a desk scored an 8.
Charlotte Harbor / Boca Grande snook
Typically closed Dec 1–end of Feb and May 1–Sep 30. Gulf region, not Atlantic. Verify FWC.
Regs citedFWC saltwater recreational · current FWC regional rules · rolls in 7 days. Snook closures are regional. Boca Grande is not Jupiter. Verify FWC before you keep one.