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The Saturday Letter · Vol. 1 · No. 34

Week of the water

August 17 – August 23, 2026 · August fundamentals · Florida · 1 of 1 desk · this week’s desks

Permalink: /newsletter/2026-08-22

This week on your coast

Islamorada

4.4

Permit are the hunt — oceanside permit and bones, or Channel 5 current — not a Texas marsh sentence. Heat is the clock — first light or last light.

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

This week

Florida desk

Islamorada

Educated fish, short windows

4.4OF 10

Today

high

Permit are the hunt — oceanside permit and bones, or Channel 5 current — not a Texas marsh sentence. Heat is the clock — first light or last light.

Snook still closed — Boca through September, Jupiter through August. Bones at first light. Thunder by two.

Water.
4 mph E · thunderstorms · 93°F water
Tide.
incoming · +0.5 ft vs the table
Moon.
Waxing gibbous · mid
Window.
Incoming water — Moving water in the right part of the day.
5.2Tarpon5.2Permit

— Tide is incoming from NOAA.

— The gauge is +0.45 ft off the predicted table — read the water, not just the printout.

Open the Islamorada brief

Box score · August

In peak this month

  • 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

Closed or closing

  • 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.

August by region, type, and species

Regs citedFWC saltwater recreational · current FWC regional rules · rolls in 8 days. Snook closures are regional. Boca Grande is not Jupiter. Verify FWC before you keep one.