Joe bucher moon secrets best fishing times12/28/2023 ![]() Heting examined his catch records and discovered that: “he best 30 pound muskellunge day of the entire lunar month is the day after the new moon, the odds of catching a big fish are twice as good as they are on the average lunar day” Specifically, a lot more big muskellunge… were taken right on the actual scheduled calendar day of both the full or new (dark) moon peak and continued for a three to five day stretch afterwards”ĭettloff examined catch records from the Chippewa Flowage, Wisconsin, and concluded that: ![]() “…my logs revealed the predictable frequency of big fish catches during the peak moon phases of full moon and new moon. Much information related to the influence of the moon on muskellunge feeding behavior and catchability has appeared in popular literature. He found that although muskellunge were inactive >70% of the time, there was some evidence of a lunar effect on activity. ![]() Landsman used implanted accelerometers to track the activity of muskellunge in an Ontario river. Donabauer, using angler-reported data, found that more trophy pike in the state of Indiana were caught around the full and new moons than otherwise. The effect of the moon phase on CPUE was less than the effect of time of day, fishing pressure, and water temperature, however. Catch per unit of effort (CPUE) of pike ( Esox lucius) in a German lake was elevated during the full and new moon. Accordingly, lore has accumulated around muskellunge behavior, a central theme of which is the role of moon phases on the species' feeding activity and catchability.Īnglers' beliefs about lunar-cycle effects on game fish feeding and catchability are sometimes corroborated by scientific study. Because it grows to a large size (documented to 30 kg and 140 cm ), fights hard, and is notoriously difficult to catch, there is a mystique, even a nobility to the species. The species supports a sport fishery worth billions of dollars to the economies of the United States and Canada. The muskellunge ( Esox masquinongy) is arguably the premier non-salmonid freshwater game fish in North America. The Solunar effect is due in part to the influences of the sun and moon, which are greatest when they are aligned, as at the time of the full and new moon. Solunar tables predict days and hours of increased fish and wildlife activity−times when the likelihood of fishing and hunting success is increased. The idea that fish-feeding behavior is related to the phases of the moon was popularized, if not quite quantified, by John Alden Knight in 1936 with the publication of his “Solunar” tables. Studies of the effects of the moon on fish behavior have shown that fish spawning –, vertical and horizontal movement, , migration, , activity, feeding, , and vulnerability to commercial, or recreational fishing – may be synchronized to lunar cycles. This effect has been attributed to variation among moon phases in lunar illumination, but our results do not support that hypothesis for angler-caught muskellunge. We argue that this variation is evidence that the effect of the lunar cycle on catch is mediated by biological factors and is not due solely to angler effort and reflects lunar synchronization in feeding. There was no difference in the lunar effect between expert and novice muskellunge anglers. The lunar effect was stronger for larger muskellunge (>102 cm) than for smaller fish, stronger in midsummer than in June or October, and stronger for fish caught at high latitudes (>48°N) than for fish caught further south. Several factors affected the amount of variation explained by the lunar cycle. We could therefore not conclude that the lunar effect on catch was due to an effect on fish behavior alone. For Lake Vermilion there was a significant effect of the lunar cycle on angler effort. We obtained angler effort data for Wisconsin, Mille Lacs (MN), and Lake Vermilion (MN). On some lakes and at night, the maximum relative effect was higher. Anglers fishing exclusively on the peak lunar day would, on average, catch 5% more muskellunge than anglers fishing on random days. The predicted maximum relative effect was ≈5% overall. At night, more muskellunge were caught around the full moon than the new moon. More muskellunge were caught around the full and new moon than at other times. Using periodic regression, we showed that the number caught was strongly related to the 29-day lunar cycle, and the effect was consistent across most fisheries. We analyzed angling catch records for 341,959 muskellunge ( Esox masquinongy) from North America to test for a cyclic lunar influence on the catch.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |