I brought up the issue of the moon phase in one of my other posts recently:
http://www.calfishing.com/dcforum/freshreports/684.html
and I thought it was worth revisiting.
For the current moon phases and delta tides, check out
http://www.californiadelta.org/deltatides.htm

One of the beautiful things about the internet is that it allows you to so see fishing results for a given day on many different waters and over many years. In saltwater you can read the fish count in the paper or online every day and get a cross section of the bite from all of California with thousands of fisherman fishing for many different species. Even if I'm not going fishing I'm always checking the fish count in an effort to correlate the fishing to factors like weather, moon, wind, time of year, and water temperature. There are definitely certain condidtions that can lead to good fishing and I believe the moon has a LOT to do with it especially for tuna, white seabass, yellowtail, and other "surface" species. Here is my anecdotal findings for some of the more popular species:

White Seabass: In the week leading to the full moon white seabass are usually on their best bite. We saw this even as recently as last week with the hot bite at Santa Cruz Island. It seems like the best bite is often 3 to 5 days before full, sometimes 2 days before full. Come the day before full, the day of the full moon and the day after, fishing seems to be really tough. This time around was kind of a bad indication because the weekend fell on the best fishing period. I wasn't there but I would hazard a guess that there were TONS of boats out there and that can be an over-riding factor. Today was the day before full and it was tough without being the weekend, so we'll see if I'm full of it tomorrow and the next day.

Yellowtail: I would say that yellows seem to follow similar patterns as the seabass. A big overriding factor with yellows seems to be the weather. As I mentioned on the main page it seems to be generally true that if you have a storm front coming in, the fish will feed heavily during the "lull before the storm" the brief period of good weather that preceeds certain types of storms.

Tuna: I haven't followed tuna super close over time but tuna do seem to bite really well very close to the full moon. Today there were 21 guys for 221 albies out of morro. I've been albacore fishing twice on the day of the full moon though and both trips sucked bad. Of course both trips were "should have been here yesterday" trips, so there's something to be learned from that.

So that's my take on ocean fishing and I feel like freshwwater fish, especially bass, follow similar patterns. This is most evident in the spring when the fish are moved to spawn on the full moon. I believe the best days to fish are 2 to 3 days before full almost irrespective of water temperature. This held true for month after month at Santa Margarita lake. In particular, I caught more big fish in the week to 2 days before full in February at Margarita than any other week long period during the year. I think a few of those bigger fish may actually have been spawning in February despite cold weather, just because they were moon crazy! Maybe I'm moon crazy but I believe it. It sure was tough to get a bite on the full moon day though, and post full moon was always so-so. I'm not talking about all bass here. It's not like I'm saying you will gets skunked on the day of the full moon or have really terrible fishing. What I'm postulating is that I really think that the day of full, the day before and the day after are simply bad times to try to catch big bass. In Margarita that was fish over 5lbs. At other lakes it might be fish over 10lbs. I would love to hear some evidence contradicting this, and certainly there will be some out there, but I just don't think there are that many big fish caught during those three days. Right before? Oh yeah, right during ... it just hasn't happened for me.

What I'm trying to figure out now is, does this apply outside of the spring months? I am starting to think that it does. Yes, there can be over-riding factors. This weekend we had really low humidity and an offshore flow in the bay area, something we barely had all summer. Stuff like that can be an over-riding factor, but in general the bite for big fish should have been good from the 26th through the 30th of September. There were some big fish caught up to the 28th but after that it shut off with the weather.

So no theory is perfect, but I would challenge everyone to follow this deal and let me know what they think. One thing I know for certain. On the right moon phases next year in the spring I will be out getting after the big fish, and I think it will pay off.

So let's hear what you guys think. Am I a barni or what :-)

Nice post, the moon definetly has a lot to do with fish behavior, I'm just confused by it all. I've always heard that the full moon is bad for tuna, especially albies, but this summer some of the best counts were on the full moon- I've also heard bluefin are good on the full moon. Go figure. I know the full moon in the spring pulls the big girls up onto the nests, and I believe in the salt it can make a difference as to fish travelling\feeding all night under the moon. Lots of questions, I need to learn more about this. Thanks for the info, it definetly helps! The tide pull under the full or new moon also is a big factor, especially inshore, although I know the marlin guys watch the tide change very close.

This summer at a trophy trout lake in Oregon about seven days before the full moon the browns went crazy, quite a few over ten including one over twenty along with many other nice fish between five and nine pounds. Stockers are weird fish, seen them in the middle of large lakes swimming in circles they probaly break most of the rules. Some guys on the White River system in Arkansas swear by the full moons at night and big browns at night, my best night bite was on a night with about 1/2 a moon showing and the only reason the bite stopped was that we ran out of flies. Browns are harder to predict then bass.

One strange thing about last weekend on the Delta by Suisun was that there were very few fish busting shad at night which they usually always do. After some light came on the water the bite was on. Very confusing.

Mr. Swimbait.

I too find myself too busy to focus on the moon's influence on my fishing. If the moon's full on a Sat. or Sunday, what am I gonna do,not go fish? I haven't really been to into it to make it easy.

I do remember reading some extensive studies by Doug Hannon. I'm sure you and everyone else in the forum knows who he is. If not, he's got a PhD in fisheries biology, and spends a lot of time hunting giant bass in Florida and that area. He's been doing it for about 20 or 30 years...

He's got a book called Big Bass Magic or something like that. An entire chapter is dedicated to the moons influence on big bass, and he has all sorts of records to back it up.

He concludes that undoubtably the moon has influenced when large bass have been caught. He goes back to almanacs and gets moon info from all the biggest catches in history. I've got a copy of the book at home and will read it and try to post a more sensible message.

Bottom line is that this guy believes the moon is a major factor. Ever see a Hannon dial? Anyway, you scare me with your big fish mentality. Good thinkin' boss!

Some guys swear by those solunar tables that you find in Field & Stream, I've never bothered to pay attention, but it must be somewhat valuable as they have been printing them forever. Like Matt said, if it's a full moon on the day I have to fish, it isn't going to matter! Still be nice to tip the odds in my favor though.