Lunar Tunes T

HE MOON GETS A LOT OF credit, and plenty of blame, for a great many things that a ect our lives and surroundings. It can be held responsible for everything from se ing romantic moods to triggering werewolf a acks. 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 shing and hunting prospects. Its gravitational pull makes tides ow—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 ow 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) e ects on sh—coined the Solunar eory—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, shing outcomes. Applying scienti c methods, he eliminated all the factors but those associated with the tides.

His research found that tidal in uence 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 speci c periods during the solar and lunar cycles that produced increased activity in both sh and game. ese 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 nd whether certain traits, such as opening their shells, were caused by tidal action or by the moon. When rst relocated from their ocean habitat to a lab in Chicago, the oysters followed a pa ern 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. e ndings of all this research shows that celestial forces not only a ect tides and coastal sh but could be responsible for the behavior of game sh—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. anks 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. ey do.”

Success on the water or in the eld has always required 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.

Email Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com

Email Roy at rneves@fishgame.com

JOE DOGGETT • SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

DOUG PIKE • SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

LENNY RUDOW • BOATING EDITOR

MATT WILLIAMS • FRESHWATER EDITOR

PETE ROBBINS • BASS FISHING EDITOR

KELLY GROCE • CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

LOU MARULLO • HUNTING EDITOR

LARRY WEISHUHN • WHITETAIL EDITOR

DUSTIN ELLERMANN • SHOOTING EDITOR

REAVIS WORTHAM • HUMOR EDITOR

GRANT GISEL • DIGITAL CONTRIBUTOR

MORIAH FORMICA • DIGITAL CONTRIBUTOR

STAN SKINNER • CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

LISA MOORE • CONTRIBUTING PHOTO EDITOR

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