In general I find that the best time for me to fish during the day is on a 1/4 and 3/4 moon. 1/4 moon I can easily get numbers and 3/4 I end up getting larger fish but not as many dinks.

Given this past weekend I fished with Mike in SJ on Fri (prefish), Sat for Gilroy Bassmasters club tournament (with Bob G from NCBF) and Sun with Mike in SJ for the Hook Tournament with a Full moon officially on Monday all on the delta between Orrwood, Holland Track and Victoria Canal.

Friday we noticed that the fish were really active and hitting just about every crankbait thrown if it was Red, Red w/ orange belly or Chart w/ Blue back off the rocks in or near points and current. Jig and worm bite wasn't working for us, however there were a number of big fish missed from both of us on Senkos. We ran into Bob Santora (a.k.a. Dropshot from NCBF) and he had an 8+lb and a 5+lb toad that I took a pic for him on senkos -- yes he predicted that Fri was going to be a great fishing day on ncbf that morning as it was 3 days prior to the full moon.

Sat while fishing the gilroy bassmaster club tournament I fished the same areas with Bob G throwing cranks, spinnerbaits and buzzbaits all day with very little action. Scent seemed to make a big difference with the crankbaits and I weighed in only 1 legal fish for 2.71lbs, but had at least 15-20 10"-12.5" fish all day. Bob blanked as did 3 other guys in the club and only one person had a limit from Disco Bay. Weights in general were pretty small and the fish were scarce.

Sun rolls around and it was even worse. Mike and I tried cranking, jigs, buzzbaits, senkos, spinnerbaits, etc and had maybe 3-5 dinks all day. Around noon I landed the first legal fish and around 2:15pm I landed a second fish for a 2 fish total of 3.77lbs. That put us tied for 61/87 boats with Sheldon Bright and Rodney Green who were fishing out of the Fish Sniffer boat and took 2nd place at the last Hook tournamnent. These guys are awesome fishermen and had the same luck as us that day.

Analyzing the data from 25+ hrs of fishing this weekend (yes Mike I'm overanalyzing the siutation again ha!) I'm tempted to believe that a number of the toads started feeding heavily several days before the full moon and continue to feed during the night with the bright moon. This may make for an awesome night fishing experience if you can schedule a trip 3-4 days prior to a full moon and weather permitting. The fish should be more active and feeding heavily at night and simply resting/hanging out during the day or in an inactive mode.

Now that we're entering the fall season, the weather is going to play a much bigger role on the fish activity along with the moon phase and the tides in the delta. If you really want to a draw a conclusion as to solunar tables and night fishing, I would mark on your calendars for next summer (after Post-spawn has finished and the weather stablizes a bit in CA) and fish during or just before the moon phase in question. This should give you a better understanding as to what the fish are doing at night vs. day and have less factors to deal with. BTW, according to Larry Hemphill the hot dog days of summer with can produce some huge toads from Clear Lake. If you're looking for an experienced night fishing angler to bounce this question off of I suggest emailing him or trying to get in contact with him on NCBF.

Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

PS - Bill Murphy's book has a chapter on Moon phase as it relates to big bass, however you will need to draw your own conclusions to bass in general. Check it out it's definately a good source of information.

Vince
vince@theblankslate.com