By: Capt. Rob Modys
In the world of magazines, the stories you read were written at least one month in advance, if not more. The time required in between the writing and publication is needed for editing, and page layout. In light of this time lapse, it’s very daring of me to pen an article in July about the weather in August, but I feel I must, and I’m going to cite my status as a science geek.
Yes, I love science. I was a hopeful future holder of a marine biology degree, but a lot of things got in the way in the middle of college, and I wound up in the business technology world. When my technology job hit a major hiccup, the universe aligned and brought science back into play in my career as I became a fishing guide.
So, I’m going to science the heck out of August weather while still in July.
There’s some good news. The weather in the Keys during the month of August is normally fairly predictable. It rains almost every day — sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and it’s also hot and very humid because, well, it’s summer. The only major variation is the occasional low-pressure system that becomes a tropical storm or hurricane.
Winds normally range from calm to slightly breezy unless the aforementioned tropical blow shows up. Water temperatures are pretty stable with higher readings in the backcountry than in both the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. That’s due to the much shallower water depths in the backcountry.
In my opinion, August is a great time to catch almost any fish species in the Keys except perhaps tarpon. They tend to migrate north during the summer, so the big schools of adults are much more difficult to locate and target. But aside from that almost all the other fish species that anglers love to go after are readily available in August.
Another positive is something a lot of folks don’t notice unless they spend a great deal of time on the water. The saltwater high and low tides are quite a bit higher in the summer than in the winter, allowing anglers to search for fish in locations that were unobtainable in the winter.
In the winter the sun is lower in the southern skies and pulls water out of the bays. During the summer the sun is much higher and pulls water in.
Well, sort of. Actually, the sun continually stays right where it is all the time, it’s the tilting earth that makes the sun appear to move higher in the summer skies and lower in the winter.
My favorite thing about August, regardless of the weather, is there’s much less boat and vehicle traffic in the Keys. The long 4th of July weekend is in the past and lobster mini season is also over. Locals suddenly have the Keys to themselves, almost.
And the fishing is fantastic!