Lunar Tunes

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THE MOON GETS a lot of credit, and plenty of blame, for a great many things that affect our lives and surroundings. It can be held responsible for everything from setting romantic moods to triggering werewolf attacks. It has inspired myths, religions, and mankind’s greatest feat of exploration—when humans literally walked on its surface.

In our neck of the universe, the moon has long been relied upon as a gauge of fishing and hunting prospects. Its gravitational pull makes tides flow—every sailor, coastal angler, and beach front realtor knows this. And its phases are considered prime factors in the movement and feeding habits of game.

Tidal movement itself, the flow of water in and out, would appear to be explanation enough for the increased feeding action—and lure biting—that occurs when the tides are running. But there is more to it than that.

A formal study of solar (sun) and lunar (moon) effects on fish—coined the Solunar Theory—was established in the 1920s by an angler named John Alden Knight. Knight compiled a list of various factors that had long been thought to account for good, and poor, fishing outcomes. Applying scientific methods, he eliminated all the factors but those associated with the tides.

His research found that tidal influence had less to do with the physical movement of water and more to do with the forces causing that movement—the positions of the sun and, especially, the moon. Knight’s initial conclusions pinpointed specific periods during the solar and lunar cycles that produced increased activity in both fish and game. These periods of “solunar activity” coincided with the peak of the daily lunar cycle—when the moon was at its highest point over any given location.

In another study, a biologist at Northwestern University conducted an experiment on oysters to find whether certain traits, such as opening their shells, were caused by tidal action or by the moon. When first relocated from their ocean habitat to a lab in Chicago, the oysters followed a pattern of opening their shells in sync with high tide back in their home habitat. But they soon adjusted to opening when the moon was directly overhead, or underfoot at Chicago.

The findings of all this research shows that celestial forces not only affect tides and coastal fish but could be responsible for the behavior of gamefish—and game—everywhere. It also opened the door to forecasting conditions for any local position.

Solunar tables have been a staple of newspapers and outdoor magazines for almost a hundred years. Thanks to John Knight’s exhaustive study, and the onward march of technology, this data is now more reliable as a planning tool for anglers and hunters.

Countless tinkerers and entrepreneurs have built on Knight’s research and developed innumerable variations in the form of data services and apps to tackle the eternal quest for more, and bigger, bags and catches.

Do these tools work? Based on our experience, and more importantly, the feedback from thousands of readers over the decades that our own Sportsman’s Daybook has evolved, we’d have to say, “Yes. They do.”

The secret to success in the field or on the water has always been knowing as much as possible about the prey and its habitat. Any tool that advances that knowledge has value, and one of those tools happens to be Earth’s closest neighbor.

It pays to stay in tune with the moon.

E-mail Roy at rneves@fishgame.com and Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com