Pike & The Moon

[Vagabond]

Well, its a thought Budgie. When you start to look, all sorts of correlations between animals and solunar cycles appear - corals for example - see http://www.thekrib.com/Marine/spawning.html

[RedSnake]

admin note: Digging up a 5 year old topic to try and sell your solunar app when you've never contributed anything is not the way to go.

Newt

 

There is detailed information about the Solunar Theory at [removed[/url]. In a nutshell, the Solunar Theory was proposed in the 1930's by John Alden Knight who noted that fishing feeding times correlated with the position and phase of the moon. Major feeding periods occur when the moon is overhead or undefoot, Minor periods occur as the moon is rising or setting, and peak activity occurs around a full and new moon while less intense activity occurs at first quarter and last quarter moons.

 

We've created a solunar table app for the iPhone called .................................... that can be downloaded from iTunes at URL removed...

 

Can anyone help this visitor?

 

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<font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Hello my name is Paul I am 13 and have been fishing for 8 years I am a massive pike fisher man and have caught lots of doubles and my best is 18lb I have heard some thing about moon phases has something to do about Pike feeding I have tryed many websites but I dont understand please help me and explain how to use the moon phases and what it all is </font><hr />

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[weirwulf]

One of the most successful anglers in my club gives predictions of the best chance catching times based on moon phase and he is seldom wrong. Many of us can only fish at certain times and just go any way but he tries to plan visits to match predicted times often with a window that is just an hour or so. Of course other factors are also important such as air pressure, water temperature, location etc but as they say every little helps

[Vagabond]

admin note: Digging up a 5 year old topic to try and sell your solunar app when you've never contributed anything is not the way to go.

Newt

 

Quite right Newt

 

Nevertheless I enjoyed reading the thread again.

 

Weirwulf - is the reasoning used by this "successful angler" (i'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that it is barbel he is interested in) similar to that of Chris Lyons ?

 

or Andy Humphries ?

 

or solunar.com?

 

I ask, because I have looked at a number of solunar/lunar theories, and all come up with slightly different thories.

Edited May 13, 2010 by Vagabond

[watatoad]

Most interesting points on an old theory...

 

I've often wondered if the fish have their version of the banks bugged using sudden movements by other creatures scurrying away from the sounds of the approaching angler...the noise of the approaching angler may well depend on such things as amount of alcohol consumed that night or perhaps the night before...how careful or clumsy the angler is...how well the angler can see in the dark and how well footed or how silently the angler can move in the dark.

 

All of which will be effected by how well the angler knows a particular stretch of river/lake bank. Plus today's angler is a pleasure angler as opposed to an angler who needed to fish to feed himself and his family.

 

Today we live in an artificially illuminated world, governed more by clocks and the toys of today (T.V., the Computer, etc.) Whereas our ancestors were governed more by the weather, the changing seasons and the great outdoors, they were much closer to nature than we are and much more dependent their skills to put food on the table...they just did not have a handy supermarket and relied for a fair part on what nature could provide.

 

We have attempted to compensate for our lack of skills, knowledge and abilities in this area with our modern technologically advanced fishing tackle and baits, but have complicated the situation by our demand for a particular species, larger catches and larger fish.

 

I do believe in the theory of fish being effected by the moon, light, weather, seasons and nature in general, I think our biggest error is to assume we are not. For example how we dress affects how we move, therefore we are likely to move freer and probably quieter on a warm summer night than when wearing warm boots and a heavy coat on a frosty or wet autumn or winter night.

 

Then to the equation we must add in our thoughts in our modern society we are subject to more unrelated thoughts running through our minds e.g. how is Jimmy/Sue or whatever going to get on with his/her exams, is my job secure, will the Mrs find out about my girlfriend, will the car pass its next M.O.T. how am I going to get enough money to pay the increased council tax bill and so on and so fourth. Whereas our ancestors although also having problems surviving appear to be far more single minded when it comes to hunting for food for the table rather than pleasure fishing we indulge in.

 

I can remember an old poacher saying to me 'Them up in the big house don't have any idea of how to catch a fish for the table every time they go out, so they makes up lots of etiquette and rules for their fishing.' Perhaps we are more like 'Them up in the big house.' Than most of us realise.

 

We have forgotten the ways of the countryside and nature and the effects it has on both our quarry and ourselves.

Edited May 13, 2010 by watatoad

[weirwulf]

Quote: Vagabond .....Weirwulf - is the reasoning used by this "successful angler" (i'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that it is barbel he is interested in) similar to that of Chris Lyons ?

 

In answer to that vagabond, my mate is primarily interested in Medway Barbel. You will know just how cute these fish can be with the Medway not being a "Barbel" water. Because he has a fair journey he does try to maximise his chances of a catch . He not only succeeds in catching good numbers but also has a habit of reaching the better specimens most of which he attributes to timing. I certainly would not fish at some of the times he does. I have to add he often predicts on our club private forum that the moon phase is spot on and expects to do well and hey presto the next day comes the catch report.

Edited May 13, 2010 by weirwulf

[poledark]

I seem to remember a pretty heated debate on BFW and it all ended up with the bloke who claimed to predict the times actually lied about when/where/at what time he caught his fish :)

 

I thoroughly enjoyed all the argy bargy at the time

 

Den

[Vagabond]

I seem to remember a pretty heated debate on BFW and it all ended up with the bloke who claimed to predict the times actually lied about when/where/at what time he caught his fish

 

 

 

Doesn't surprise me too much !

[Vagabond]

I do remember once spending a lot of time going back through my fishing logs, and comparing my catches with the moons phases.

 

On only one water could I see a pattern - which I reproduce below

 

 

Budgie told us that big full moons were bad news for bream fishers - Now as I rarely fish for bream I hadn't enough data to check this out directly, but I did run a comparison of my roach catches against moon phases.

 

The results from one water in particular were very interesting. Sometimes you could catch two or three decent roach (I'm talking fish of between 1lb 4 oz and 1 lb 14 oz) in a session, sometimes you would be pestered with bream the entire session.

 

When I checked the catch data (and I fished this water a lot) against moon phase, I found I was catching these decent roach at the very times Budgie said were bad for bream,

 

Contradictory ? - I think not. It could just be that the only chances the big roach had to find my baits were when the bream were skulking.

 

This might be a one-off water, as I could not discern similar patterns at other waters I fish. It does show however, that patterns do exist, although you need to do a lot of fishing to get enough results to show a trend.

[essox_lucius]

ok this is my 2p worth pike are predators anyone that hunts goes when the moons up as rabbits feed better (can see the foxes coming) same with pike more light at night penetrating the water the more pike can see the prey fish as the meercat says simples