For the last 4 months, I have been studying Solunar Theory. There is plenty of information on the internet and countless books on it. My infatuation with solunar theory started when I fished in the Ecuadorian Andes with Eduardo Campuzano, owner of Campuchoca Lodge near Quito, Ecuador. That adventure is detailed here. My amusing / eye opening experience was Eduardo using an app on his android phone, staring at it for a period of time and then saying, “Tim, you have come on a below average stretch of fishing days. You should have come next week.” At first I thought a storm must be moving in with the barometer falling. However, the weather was perfect, sunny and even some clouds for potential hatches. I asked him what he was staring at and he basically said, “The solunar score for today’s fishing. It’s only a 44 and tomorrow is 43.” Amusingly I said, “out of 100?” and he said yes. Now, I was really skeptical, but intrigued. I stared at his application on his phone and he showed me how the week coming the scores were in the 80s and 90s. He told me it was based on science. And that statement is what got me motivated to learn more about Solunar Theory.
I did pretty darn well in hot creek on a poor solunar fishing day
Well, we went out fishing and I did well. After practically every fish I caught, I teased Eduardo with the statement, “Below average fishing.” with a smile on my face. He always retorted, “You should come back when it’s good.” So after two, what I would call good days of fly-fishing and some cocktails, I decided I needed to learn more.
Since then I have tested Solunar Theory “in the field”. This is about my findings and conclusions.
a big spawing rainbow caught on the upper owens river on a good solunar fishing day.
Background on Solunar Theory
John Alden Knight created the Solunar Theory. Essentially Solunar Theory is that fishing is best when the sun and moon are closest. Mr. Knight was an avid fly angler and wrote many books on fly-fishing. He wrote three important books on Solunar Theory:
- Moon Up – Moon Down: Story of the Solunar Theory, 2001
- The modern angler,: Including the solunar theory, 1936
- Moon up-Moon Down John Alden Knight’s Srory of the Solunar Theory, 1972
In 1926, while fishing in Florida Mr. Knight analyzed some local folk lore that which inspired him to evaluate 33 factors that seemed to influence behavior of fish. The theory was that these 33 factors caused fish to be periodically more active. One by one each factor was disproven until 3 remained: sun, moon and tides. It was from this field research that Mr. Knight created Solunar Theory. Sol for sun; Lunar for moon.
It is also commonly accepted that Solunar Theory applies to all living things. from www.solunar.com:
“It is now known that the sun and moon are the two major sources of the astral energies that daily bombard the Earth and all her life forms. The closer they are to you at any given moment, the stronger the influence. The day of a new or full moon will provide the strongest influence in each month.”
You can learn a lot more about Solunar theory from Mr. Knight’s books or www.solunar.com.
We’ve had a record winter in the Sierras this year and water temperature definitely affects the fly-fishing.
Field Testing Solunar Theory
After i got home from Ecuador i intended to immediately buy the Solunar Theory app that Eduardo uses. Well, i thought i bought what i thought was the app. The app store is so saturated now that i bought a solunar theory fishing app, but it was the wrong one. i was really disappointed with it. Turns out I bought the wrong app. After some investigation, I bought the right app; the app that Eduardo uses, called “Fishing & Hunting Solunar Time Pro” from the iphone app store for $2.99. It’s a really well written app. I’m a software guy. I know a good piece of software when I use it.
You can download the app in the apple store here.
You can download the app in the google store here.
I reached out to the developer of the app, Anton Nikitin, anton.nkt@gmail.com, and he was very responsive to a few questions I had on the use of the app. I now use the app all the time. It’s one of, if not the only app I use with fly fishing.
An excellent Solunar Fishing day on the Lower Owens River as reported on the Fishing & Hunting Solunar Time Pro app
So, I started my testing of Solunar Theory fishing on excellent solunar fishing days. My first fishing day was in the surf in Carlsbad, CA….skunked. The solunar app told me it was a “93” day and I caught the rising tide perfectly in the morning. I only fished for a couple hours. Skunked. Why? Because the waves were huge. It was impossible to get a cast and the line down with enough strips to make it effective. That was my first lesson on solunar theory: so many other factors can screw with it.
But, I did have 2 back to back weekend trips to the lower Owens River in the eastern sierras just weeks later. The first weekend was 3 days where the app showed excellent Solunar fishing days above 90. The following weekend it showed the exact opposite solunar fishing days: poor, in the 20s and 30s. Surely that would be a good test: fishing the exact same place on both good and poor solunar days. It was not. Why? The river was blown out. But, I did go to the upper Owens river for a single day each of those weekends where the river was not blown out. The problem was that I did good on both weekends there. Not great; good. I caught big fish on both those days. I even caught a handful of quality fish in Hot Creek on a bad solunar day. Hot creek has not fished well in a long time because of the drought. I did slightly worse on the bad solunar days, but, not enough to blame it on solunar theory.
An poor Solunar Fishing day at the beach in Carlsbad as reported on the Fishing & Hunting Solunar Time Pro app
Summary
I believe Solunar Theory as applied to fly-fishing does help. I am going to continue to field test Solunar Theory. If I was guiding full time I would use Solunar Theory religiously for the way I fished; not when I fished. In good weather and good river conditions, I’d be much more apt to dry fly on excellent solunar days and much more apt to fish “under the bobber” on poor solunar days.
However, as contrasted to hunting or fishing conventionally there are so many other factors that affect success in fly-fishing: Weather, the Barometer, river flow, water temperature, time of year, hatches, spawning, etc. Nothing, including Solunar Theory replaces skill, knowledge and a little luck: a good cast that puts the bug in the right water at the right time and even a little luck is still the best prescription for fly-fishing success. But, if Solunar Theory can help your chances of success, then why the heck not leverage it?
