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SOLUNAR TABLES
By Andy Humphries
Andy Humphries with an 11-2 caught 6 minutes before
moon rise on the day after the Full Moon.
Go to Next Article; Hunch
or Habit by Huw James
Does the phase of the moon affect how barbel feed?
Sea anglers use tide timetables to plot the best times to fish but surely
not barbel anglers. At a BCC meeting a few years ago someone stated that
they had no confidence fishing during a Full Moon, the reason being that
it was so bright that barbel were able to see the line and terminal better
than when it was pitch black. I recalled having a good catch of big fish
just after Christmas one year when the moon was so bright, I could tell
the time at midnight by glancing at my digital wristwatch.
I decided to investigate if it is possible to predict good days for barbel
fishing by the phase of the moon. I have to point out that most of the
theory on fish behaviour comes from the Solunar.com website. My aim was
to firstly try to understand what was supposed to happen and then see
if the results of the Barbel Catchers mirrored it. As I had absolutely
no claim to have invented the theory, I looked at the results subjectively.
I was also careful not to jump to any conclusions and tried to look through
the results to see the full picture. I was concerned at first that the
results could reflect that more fish are caught when most people are out
fishing-an obvious statement but one that needs stating. I thought that
Saturday would be the peak day for fish to get caught as most people work
from Monday to Friday but I also calculated the best days to catch fish
and although Saturday did reasonably well over the two years I looked
at, it wasn't significantly better than any other day.
First I had to read up on the subject and understand why the moon moves
through the sky and what possible impact this could have on fish behaviour.
The Theory
1. The moon travels around the earth and takes just over twenty-nine and
a half days to complete a cycle. If we start at the New Moon, this is
where the moon is directly in-between the earth and the sun, hence all
the light from the sun falls on the side of the moon facing away from
the earth and we can't see it, especially as it is in the sky during daylight
hours. The next phase is the First Quarter (or half moon) and then the
Full Moon where the moon is furthest away from the sun relative to the
earth. The sun is striking the face of the moon that is facing the earth
and is easily visible and the moon is visible in the sky virtually all
night. The moon goes on to the Last Quarter (or half moon) and on to the
New Moon again. There is an excellent section on the moon on Encarta CD-ROM,
type in ‘moon’ in the search box in articles and the video
‘phases of the moon’ shows how the moon rotates around the
earth very graphically. The moon rises or sets approximately fifty minutes
later each day and this also dictates at what point of the day or night
it is visible.
2. The moon is the principle source of tides. At the New Moon, the moon
and sun are pulling in the same direction and the tides are usually the
highest. The Severn Bore also occurs around the New and the Full Moon
phases and produces a tidal wave that flows right up the Bristol Channel
into the Severn. At the Quarter stages, the tide-line shows a small variation
and these are known as neap tides. The moon does not rotate around the
centre of the earth; the point is actually about three-quarters of the
way across the earth’s radius and is known as the barycentre. The
moon varies in its distance from us, at its closest it is 221,000 miles
away and 253,000 at its furthest. The moon therefore travels in an elliptical
orbit and the force the moon generates varies.
3. What has all this go to do with a barbel stream miles from the coast?
Something that can rock the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans twice a day is
an absolutely colossal force. If we could tap into it, we would never
have to burn a fossil fuel ever again. The gravitational force occurs
all over the face of the earth, not just over the oceans. Another name
for Solunar Tables is Gravitational Tide Tables and this is what they
are tracking. Just because we can’t feel it, it doesn’t mean
that it’s not there. Animals and fish constantly surprise us with
their homing instincts and complex social patterns and are far more tuned
to their surroundings than us. The Moon may play a far greater part that
we may realise.
4. There is a gravity change as the moon rises and sets and also when
it is at its highest point in the sky and when it is directly opposite
(and obviously out of sight). This can either be referred to as Moon Up
or Moon Down or alternatively Highest Orbit or Lowest Orbit. When the
moon is at its highest point in the sky, it exerts what is known as the
direct tide and when it is opposite, it is known as the indirect tide.
A rise or set is considered to be for an hour either side and as the force
is greater at the Up or Down period, it is good for two hours either side,
assuming that other conditions are favourable i.e. temperature not too
low (or hot), dissolved oxygen content, flow etc.
5. When two events occur within an hour, the stimulus is thought is enhanced.
At the New Moon period, especially in the winter, Sun Rise and Moon Rise
and also Sun Set and Moon Set occur very close to each other. If two events
are happening very close to each other, i.e. the moon rising as the sun
is setting, this can also allegedly enhance the effect.
I first came across Solunar Tables in the Tight Lines catalogue produced
by the tackle company Abu when I was still in short trousers. They produced
a calendar of the year and for each day was one of three different coloured
fish and they represented days that were classified as good, better or
best. I was fascinated at how they reached their conclusions and after
studying the tables, it was evident that a recurring monthly pattern was
emerging. I guessed that it was based on the phase of the moon but never
found that their predictions mirrored my early efforts. It wasn’t
until I read an article by Graham Marsden in ‘Coarse Fisherman’
a few years ago who stated that he believed the Solunar (Sun-Lunar) influence
played a part in fish feeding behaviour, that I started to take a renewed
interest and try to understand what was going on. Barbel anglers spend
a lot of time fishing after dark and I often gaze at the stars and the
moon as I wait for a fish to bite and I couldn’t understand why
the moon was visible for long periods some nights and absent all night
on others. The Barbel Catchers Club have always logged all the barbel
we catch and this is forwarded to the Records Officer who collates the
information. This helps to keep tabs on River Records and the average
size of fish on different rivers. A few years ago it was decided that
the Records Officer would put the information into a computer database
as it would make retrieving information and calculating average weights
a lot easier. Chris Thomson and Steve Withers of the Wessex Region designed
a working template for the database and entered the information and it
would have been near impossible to do the research without their foresight
and commitment into getting the information on the computer. One of the
benefits of being in the Barbel Catchers is that by having access to that
information, you can tap into a lifetime’s equivalent of catches
in a season.
In Graham Marsden’s article he gave an e-mail address that tables
could be obtained from and so I wrote to Jack Payne who runs a Website
at Solunar.com. I explained what I intended to do and Jack kindly sent
me three previous years worth of Tables free of charge that would include
the two seasons of catches that had been put on the computer. I started
off by asking the computer how many fish were caught on each day of the
season and entering the information in a table. Then I plotted a graph
on a spreadsheet of every day of the season and drew a bar graph of the
number of fish caught on each day and superimposed the main phases of
the moon on it. I also highlighted Saturdays in a different shade to see
if there was a weekly pattern developing, i.e. most people work Monday
to Friday and therefore you would expect more fish to be caught at the
weekend. When I looked at the resulting graphs, there wasn’t a regular
repeating pattern occurring and I couldn’t see that the tables were
helping to narrow the odds to catching fish. However, last year I found
another website by Chris Lyons who runs moonstrike.co.uk and he looked
at the tables in a slightly different way than I had and so with the same
set of data as before, I classified each day of the season according to
its moon phase i.e. New Moon (NM), First Quarter plus two days (FQ+2)
and so on. By taking each particular day and classifying them as they
correspond to the main phase, i.e. NM-3, NM-2, NM-1, NM, NM+1, NM+2 and
NM+3, you can cover twenty-eight days of the lunar month, which as mention
earlier is twenty-nine and a half days. I then plotted a graph of all
the fish caught over the 1997-98 season, 1998-99 season and finally a
combined graph of both seasons. The graph of the combined seasons produced
a graph with very few obvious peaks although interestingly the Full Moon
produced the most fish. I then went back to the database and this time
only requested barbel over 8lb and then plotted a similar graph. The Full
Moon came out even better and the days after the First Quarter also scored
heavily. Finally I plotted a graph of the percentage of barbel over 8lb
divided by the total number of fish caught and the days after the First
Quarter, the Full Moon and the day of the Last Quarter scored best.
After confirming that certain days do give a stastically higher chance
of catching barbel or specimen barbel, the next step was to see if the
moon was actually producing a definite trigger for feeding. I went back
to the database and looked at every day of the two seasons again and sorted
the list according to the time the fish were caught. Overall I found that
most fish were caught from mid-afternoon to roughly midnight but as that
is the time most people fish, this was expected. I was looking for specific
clusters of fish being caught close together by several anglers and preferably
on different rivers. Saturday the 5th of July 1997 was a New Moon day.
One fish was reported mid-afternoon just after the moon was at its highest
point and then nothing was caught until 21:05 hrs and then twelve fish
were caught in a feeding spell lasting two hours and five minutes. The
Sun Set time was 21:19 hrs and the Moon Set was at 21:24 hrs. That consisted
of five different anglers fishing three different rivers. The following
two days, no fish were caught, surprising as every other day that summer
produced fish. The next New Moon in August produced fish caught throughout
the evening. The following year the New Moon was on the 23rd of July,
which was a Thursday. Five fish were caught in a forty-five minute spell
from 21:00 hrs. Again no fish were reported the following day, which was
surprising. There were several other interesting clusters but none as
dramatic as that shown by the summer New Moon.
I also looked to see whether really big barbel responded to the moon phase
and looked at all the fish caught over 12lb. The first one out was Howard
Maddock’s former record, a 16 lb 3 oz fish from the Lower Severn.
The fish was caught on the 29th of November 1997 at exactly midday, the
phase day being NM-1. The moon was at its highest point in the sky at
11:26 hrs and so came only half an hour later. It has to be said that
the river was flooded, coloured and warm and these are absolute classic
conditions to catch barbel.
After completing all my research, I still wouldn’t be confident
in telling someone to turn up at the river and they would be guaranteed
to catch fish. There are many different factors affecting barbel’s
feeding behaviour and the moon cycle is only one. I would however say
that you can definitely statically increase your chance of catching barbel
by fishing on certain days of the lunar month and at the times the moon
is at key points.
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