Florida

Ponte Vedra Beach (FL)

Open access📚 Compiled from public sources

The classic North Florida beach hunt — Ponte Vedra and the adjacent Mickler's Beach feed off the same offshore Hawthorn-derived phosphate horizon. Mickler's gets the press but Ponte Vedra (just north) is quieter and just as productive after a NE blow.

⚠ Partial inputs

today

Good

4.3ft swing · neap tide · low 9:28 PM · post-storm · +6 event boost

Today at a glance

Updated 2026-07-21T08:50:55.261Z

Solid hunting day. Best window opens around the 9:28 PM low (0.6 ft). Moderate S winds (10 mph); seas 3 ft+ — murky and choppy.

Next 3 days: Next few days look steady — all good-range. Pick whatever fits your schedule.

Best Window Today

9:28 PM

Plan around the good low-tide window. 4.3ft swing · neap tide · low 9:28 PM · post-storm · +6 event boost.

Hunt score

Good

Astronomical low

0.6 ft

9:28 PM

Predicted real low

0.8 ft

above NOAA by 0.1 ft

Low-window wind

3 mph

Light — negligible effect

Tides: NOAA Mayport, FL (station 8720218)

Best window this week

Mon, Jul 27 · 1:30 PM

4.4ft swing · low 1:30 PM · 0.82" recent rain · +6 event boost

Score

Great

Confidence: Partial — noaa tide station, on-site outcomes. Hover the badge above for the input-by-input breakdown.

Tonight's moon

First quarter

49% illuminated

Sunrise 10:38 AM · Sunset 12:27 AM

Wind right now

10 mph from S

Gusts 25 mph · best from NE

Wind is cross-shore — neutral effect on tide level.

Past 7 days

Compare model output to your actual visits.

Next 7 days

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▼ means the forecast wind will likely push the real low below NOAA's prediction (more beach to hunt). ▲ means it will likely sit above the prediction (less beach). Rough rule: ~0.04 ft per mph of sustained wind during the low-tide window.

Tide times: NOAA CO-OPS station 8720218 (Mayport, FL) — local time, MLLW datum. Click to verify on NOAA. Cards show LOWS only (best for hunting); highs are visible on the tide curve below.

Tide curve · next 48h

🌤️ Weather & Wave Forecast

Impact on visibility and stir-up over the next 5 days.

Onshore Wind: Pushes water in (tide sits higher) and stirs up the bottom. Good for "new" teeth, bad for visibility.

Offshore Wind: Water blown out (tide sits lower). Maximum beach exposure for hunting the low tide line.

Why today scores 62

The Hunt Score blends tide range, lunar phase, daylight timing, recent stir, wind setup, and surf.

Wave height 3.1 ft

Best low

9:28 PM at 0.6 ft

Predicted real low

0.8 ft

Wind deviation

Less beach by 0.1 ft

Explain this scoreShow breakdown ▾

💡

Analysis

Solid. Reliable productivity expected.

Tide range

35.9 / 50

Today's swing is 4.3 ft (saturates at 6 ft = 50 pts).

Spring tide

1.8 / 15

Within ±2 days of a new or full moon = wider swing.

Daylight timing

6.6 / 15

Low in daylight = you can actually hunt.

Recent stir

0.0 / 10

Past 72h onshore wind churn (only counts hours that already happened).

Wind setup at low

-0.9 / 10

Forecast wind piles 0.1 ft of water around the low.

Surf bonus

5.0 / 5

1–4 ft of recent surf = clean sorting; >7 ft = unfishable.

Recent rainfall

0.0 / 3

No measurable rain in the past 48h — no runoff signal.

Storm multipliermultiplier

1.15×

Peak gust 34 mph triggers post-storm boost.

Event boostadded

Manual + auto events (storms, drought, beach renourishment).

Why not higher? The biggest unused headroom today is tide range (+14.1 pts available). A day with that maxed out would score around 76.

Show the math

components: 35.9 + 1.8 + 6.6 + 0.0 + -0.9 + 5.0 + 0.0 = 48.5 × storm multiplier 1.15 = 55.7 + event boost +6 = 61.7 final = 62

What's NOT in this score

We are deliberate about which factors to include. These are not currently in the model:

Hunt pressure. A “hunts this week” chip is shown on each location page for transparency, but it does not change the score yet. We need more outcomes per site before a penalty would be statistically meaningful.
Wave period / swell direction. We use wave height only. Long-period groundswell sorts material differently than short wind chop, but Open-Meteo doesn't expose period reliably.
Barometric pressure trend. Falling pressure = approaching storm = building stir. Currently we wait for the wind to actually arrive.
Water temperature, clarity, salinity. Affects comfort but not (directly) what teeth wash up.
Weekday vs weekend. A 70 on Tuesday is often better in practice than a 70 on Saturday because of crowds, but we don't adjust for that.
Beach renourishment. Fresh sand buries everything. We capture this only when an admin logs a manual event — there's no auto-detection.

If you think we should add one of these, log a hunt with notes — every rated outcome helps us decide which signals actually predict tooth count.

Hunt Score

Sum of components × 1.15 + 6 event boost, clamped 0–100.

Score model 2026.04.29 · how this is calculated

Hunted here today?

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We predicted 62. Tell us how it actually went — your rating calibrates the model.

model 2026.04.29

Reading the last 14 days of hunt logs…

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Geology

FormationsReworked Hawthorn Group phosphate

EpochsMiocene, Pliocene

Age~15-3 million years (reworked)

Star speciesGaleocerdo aduncus, Hemipristis serra, occasional Otodus megalodon

Technique

Walk the wrack line on a falling tide the day after a NE wind event. Look for the dark shell-and-phosphate lag below the upper wrack. Sift if you want — most finds are surface-visible.

Access

Multiple free public access points off A1A in Ponte Vedra Beach. The Guana Tolomato Matanzas Reserve south of town has additional walk-on access.

🗺 Open in Google Maps 🧭 Open in Apple Maps

Legality & ethics

Open beach surface collection is fine. Inside the GTM Reserve, no digging and no removing live wildlife — surface fossil collecting is tolerated.

Hazards