The Best Solunar Theory 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 solunar theory data.

What is the Solunar Theory?

John Alden Knight’s solunar theory, created in 1926, is an incredible way to predict fish activity. By combining fishing stories, sun and moon positions, and animal movement patterns, Knight discovered that the sun and moon’s relative positions play a significant role in fish activity. Knight considered several factors contributing to the fish activity, including the moon’s phase, the moon’s position relative to the overhead and underfoot points, and the sun’s rise and set times. He divided fish activity into major and minor periods, with the significant periods occurring from the moon up to the moon down. These factors affect fish behavior by influencing their feeding patterns and movement.

Moon and Sun’s Position: The moon’s position to the sun plays a significant role in the solunar theory. When the sun and moon align, such as during a new moon or full moon, their combined gravitational forces result in higher tides. These tidal movements can trigger feeding activity in fish as they take advantage of the increased water movement to locate prey.

Major and Minor Periods: The solunar theory divides each day into major and minor periods of fish activity. Major periods are the most favorable for fishing, coinciding with increased fish feeding and movement. Minor periods also indicate heightened activity but to a lesser extent. The time between major and minor periods is often called the “neutral period” with decreased fish activity.

Solunar Tables: The publishing of solunar tables provides anglers with predictions of major and minor periods of fish activity specific to their location and chosen date. These tables aim to assist anglers in planning their fishing trips during the most opportune times for successful catches. Solunar tables serve as a guide, helping anglers make informed decisions about when and where to fish.

The solunar theory is one the first things anyone entering the fishing world should learn about, then apply the knowledge they learn to plan their fishing trips. It’s important to remember that while the solunar theory and tables are popular among anglers, other factors like water temperature, current, water quality, fish migrations, spawning, weather conditions, bait availability, fishing pressure, and much more can affect fish behavior. Therefore, it’s imperative to consider the solunar theory alongside other factors when planning fishing activities.

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.

Calculating When the Bite May Happen

By understanding how fish respond to the following:

Change of Seasons
Tides
Weather
Solunar 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.

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.

The Best Solunar Fishing Secrets Revealed