The Best Solar Lunar Fishing Secrets Revealed
Are you ready to read about best solar and lunar fishing secrets? Then let’s get started with this beginners guide that will help you put together a calculated bite window formula using the solar and lunar data.
You might be wondering what all the fuss is about solar and lunar cycles. In a nutshell, these natural phenomena can significantly impact fish behavior.
By understanding how fish respond to the following:
- Change of Seasons
- Tides
- Weather
- Solar and Lunar Cycles
You can calculate when the best time to go fishing might be, which will help you make the most out of your time on the water, saving you time and money and helping you catch bigger fish more consistently.
Solar and Lunar Fishing
For many anglers, understanding the effects of the solar and lunar cycles on fish behavior is key to successful fishing. While there is little scientific evidence to support this idea, many anglers believe that fish are more active during the full or new moon phases and less so in periods between new or full moons. In general, the moon’s gravitational pull affects tides, and this, in turn, affects fish behavior.
Sunrises, Sunsets, Moonrises and Moonsets
First, learn when the sun and moon will rise and set each day. That’s right; it’s simply a matter of knowing how long until those two events happen again. With an understanding about what times these four periods occur within your 24-hour cycle (90-120 minutes around each influence).
The Good Karma Sportfishing App provides accurate information on all things related to sun/moon influence times.
- Moon Rise
- Moonset
- Sunrise
- Sunset
Now that you have determined when these celestial influences will happen, you can now formulate a 90-120 minute bite window to add to your fishing arsenal.
The Tide
Now let’s talk about how the tides come into play with the sun and moon influences. The Florida Keys have a diurnal tide–which means one high tide and one low tide per day.
Next, check to see if any of these sun/moon influences will happen simultaneously within 90-120 minutes before or after a high/low tide.
Below is are examples of bite window formulas:
Morning Bite Window Formula #1
- Moon Set: 7:18 AM
- Sunrise: 7:30am
- High Tide: 9:30am
Evening Bite Window Formula #2
- Moon Rise: 7:10 PM
- Sunset: 7:30 PM
- Low Tide: 5:00 PM
Once you put together a couple of bite window formulas, make sure to be in your fishing spot during one, if not both, of the bite formulas you put together for your trip.
Planning Fishing Trips Around Full moons, New moons, and their Backsides
Make the most out of your time by planning fishing trips around full moons, new moons, and the backsides of these moons continued with three to five-day spans afterward. Most importantly, plan on fishing the daily rise or set of the sun and moon during these significant moon phases. Always keep in mind there can be two possible 90-120 minute feeding activity windows.
Photoperiod
The photoperiod is a measure of daylight to darkness. So, photoperiodism indicates the changing ratios between light and dark. The most significant changes occur in springtime, but mini-differences can be detected throughout all seasons, triggering sexual responses such as reproduction or development for eggs. Fish like snappers and amberjacks notice this change with their eyes then transmit those particular messages to their pituitary gland to know what time to migrate, eat and spawn.
Photoperiods trigger migrations of fish in the spring months. Fish like blackfin tuna migrate into South Florida and pile up on wrecks and shallow reef edges to spawn. Sometimes, the migrations start two weeks before the full and new moons in April and May. Epic fishing for jumbo blackfin tunas happens during this time frame. The tuna feed as they are getting ready to spawn. Along with the blackfin will come the predators that eat them like the wahoo and blue marlins.
November is considered a fall photoperiod for species like wahoo. Typically the two weeks prior leading up to the November full moon every year, the wahoo fishing in Islamorada, Marathon and Key West can be very good. So plan a Florida Keys wahoo fishing trip close to the full moon, then use Jedi skills to summon a stalled cold front a day for your trip date.
Weather
Last but not least, a changing weather pattern such as a cold front happening simultaneously with a significant moon phase can make you look like a hero at the dock. So know that if a changing weather pattern such as a cold front happens during a spring or fall photoperiod, be ready for superhero status.
Conclusion
Fishing during a calculated bite formula window can be productive. There are many factors to consider when planning a fishing trip other than full and new moon phases, including the weather and photoperiods (to name a few). I encourage you to apply the bite formulas to the lesser moon phases that occur between the full and new moons. If you have not already done so, download the Good Karma Sportfishing App and give it a try. It is an excellent resource to help you put together a bite formula for your the area. Thanks for reading and make sure to check out How Fish See Color, a very detailed blog that will help you catch more and bigger fish.