Moon Phases

[Teachers Pet]

Question relating to moon phases. I was always taught the best time to go fish was when you can but I am trying to make the best of my trips and I was wondering if there is a direct correlation to fishing the rising or falling tides on waxing or waning moon phases?

[woopty]

Best time to fish is when water is moving.
The new moon and full moon bring the biggest tides, thus the most moving water.
I like to fish both sides of the new moon and the front side of the full moon.

[HewesMan]

But...also remember that a stiff wind can negate the strong tides the moon tries to bring as well.

[gatoremt]

I was able to add the moon phases to my google calendar.

[kenfly]

I have wanted to learn more about the moons and tides but I'm one of those that I just go whenever I can and I just have to deal with whatever moon or tides I'm dealt with. Ps this weather has got me wanting to hit the water bad:)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[charlie tuna]

All my life I just went whenever I had time, but for the past five years I have fished according to the best times shown on the moon phase, and have been very successful. Spend a lot less time looking, and more time catching! There for a while, in the middle of the afternoon, I could be back at the ramp with my two reds in less than an hour and a half! As stated above, it has to do with current -- current moves the bait and the game fish know that's the easiest time to capture them..

[gatoremt]

All my life I just went whenever I had time, but for the past five years I have fished according to the best times shown on the moon phase, and have been very successful. Spend a lot less time looking, and more time catching! There for a while, in the middle of the afternoon, I could be back at the ramp with my two reds in less than an hour and a half! As stated above, it has to do with current -- current moves the bait and the game fish know that's the easiest time to capture them..

So where do you look this up at? Just wondering. Thanks

[silverking]

Indeed, the best time to go is whenever you can. But like others have mentioned, stronger moving water associated with new and full moons is always best if you have limited opportunities to go.

I use a Solunar app on my iPhone that includes a calendar that takes into account the moon rise/set and peak feeding windows. You can set it for several locations and the app also includes a weather page with barometric pressure, wind speed, etc., plus a trophy room to stockpile photos of your trophy catches. When I've compared the day's catch later to the peak periods, it's usually been spot-on.

The app is called Fishing Times by iSolunar

I think it was around $4.99 on iTunes.

[big bend gyrene]

All my life I just went whenever I had time, but for the past five years I have fished according to the best times shown on the moon phase, and have been very successful. Spend a lot less time looking, and more time catching! There for a while, in the middle of the afternoon, I could be back at the ramp with my two reds in less than an hour and a half! As stated above, it has to do with current -- current moves the bait and the game fish know that's the easiest time to capture them..

So where do you look this up at? Just wondering. Thanks

Can do online via various websites. Most confine you to seeing only the week or month in advance for free / want you to subscribe for longer dates out / more detail. Google "solunar forecast", find one that lets you enter your zip code, and you'll get useful information.

Above shared, LOVE the FREE android app "Time2Fish Lite." Sharing sample image grabbed from internet to show what it looks like. Ranks each hour by strength of forecast, something that has been very useful to me in not only planning days to go, but targeted times to fish key spots / planning morning trips versus evening trips. Also very useful on timing weekday/workday evening pond fishing, looking for evenings with strongest evening bite. Ditto on everything Charlie Tuna said. Used to have more time to go and enjoy ALL trips but as my time has become more limited, VERY much use the solunar to help give me best chances possible for productive trips. Other factors definitely can turn the bite off, but will absolutely say this... the peak bite I experience seems to fall within 30 minutes or so of the solunar high point forecast. And that's not an observation from one or two trips but instead many trips over the last 10 years or so. :beer


:

[woopty]

Most of my epic trips have been on the new moon.
Some off my most disappointing trips have been right on the full moon.

[Salty Gator]

Most of my epic trips have been on the new moon.
Some off my most disappointing trips have been right on the full moon.

I'm with you on the full moon,especially offshore. We seem to have the worst luck on the full moon, even when it's underfoot. I guess they are up eating all night

[MarkM]

As far as full moon goes. Three days before and three days after.

[Teachers Pet]

Thanks for the interesting replies, I am going to look at some mobile apps. I have experienced an awesome bite on both rising and falling tides then a diminished bite on the other side of the tide and have been unable to pin it down. I have started keeping notes but a bad tide won't keep me at home when I can go. This weather is killing me and I can't go until next weekend

[MudDucker]

The old timers used to say not to fish on the full moon, because the fish fed all night. Same was true they said for deer.

[big bend gyrene]

At least as relates to cobia, I'll beg to differ on the full moon being poor. Since I like tagging them, a while back I started entering the same data I put on the cards into an excel spreadsheet. Out of curiosity I then used the internet to identify the moon phase for the dates I tagged.

Breakdown - 28 cobia caught on full moons, 25 on new moons, 2 on half-waning, 1 on quarter-waxing. Numbers almost certainly impacted by my scheduling trips on peak solunar forecasts, but I went on all the new AND full moons I could and as chart shows they bit fairly well on the full AND the new.

Off the topic just a bit but also charted catch by month... way too little fishing time chasing cobes this year... praying I can get back out there in the coming week to see if I can give the October graph a bump up.