Fishing on the moon

C
Camo
Sorry, it's not a post about fishing the Sea of Tranquility.
And……
This isn't a post about the Solunar Calendar that blessed the pages of Field & Stream magazine month after month after month.


This post is about a time tested way to predict when it will rain here in the fishing paradise we call the Pacific North West.


''The farther apart the sun is from the moon, the less likely there will be rain''. That statement isn't cut in stone and I don't know the percentage of reliability- But I have scheduled fishing vacations months and years in advance and found this piece of folklore to generally accurate.


For the last twenty-five years, a few local friends and I would fish the Necanicum River estuary (#65) in September for Silvers and chinook. Every year we would park our cars at the parking lot behind the High School before sunrise waiting for enough morning light for us to go fishing. We would drink coffee, tell stories and lie about the size of fish caught while looking at the full moon about to set in the west.
Never in all those years did we see a drop of rain during that week of fishing. It might rain before that week and surely after that week, but not the week of the full moon. Some years the fish were there in numbers. Some years, the silvers out numbered the chinooks. And most years (lately) we would notice the OSP watching us with binoculars from the 12th street bridge. ( The silvers are all native and unclipped. The chinook are all legal)
It's almost a total waist of time to bank fish up stream from the 12th Ave. bridge to the 1st Ave. bridge in Seaside unless you have a lot of time on you're hands and you like casting.
it's much better to fish down stream from the Ave B bridge. The fish congregate in that pocket before heading above tide water. Silvers are rolling and jumping all through that week.


Sorry for the side track!


A moon like this one says that the weather will be improving into the next couple weeks.
16495378345_a0c80601f9.jpg


This is how the old rain and shine fable works;


From the last quarter, through the new moon and first quarter, (when the moon seems close to the sun, from earthling perspective) expect rain. And it very seldom rains (much) during the week of a full moon.


Don't shoot the messenger!


Thanks for looking!


Camo

:)
 
  • Like
Reactions: OnTheDrop
troutdude
troutdude
Well that should make for a great season opener, at Henry Hagg Lake!
 
S
sapo
Coincidence, just finished learning about the phases of the moon at school! Lol. However, this is sort of a lame way to tell what the weather will be, nowadays we do not rely on old tricks to predict the weather, we rely on weather models. I'm probably aiming to become a meteorologist at one of the local weather stations here, or the NWS. Instead of looking at the moon, look at some height anomaly charts from the ECMWF (Mark Nelsen posts them on his blog page about once a week), you can easily predict the general pattern. For example, strong ridging would mean less rain, warmer temps, but if the ridge shifts west/north we could get backdoor cold air and weaker systems, etc. and it goes on. However this whole thing interests me, and I'm going to start recording for a month or two, and we'll see if the results come true. After I finish the data recording, I'll post a couple graphs and the data to see what the results are! thanks for posting, and you're welcome as far as the data collection
 
S
sapo
I got some data on the precipitation daily for the last five years or so, I'll compare that to the moon phases the last five years and post in a bit.
 
S
sapo
It's a massive pain to go through all of the moon phases for five years time, but I'm halfway through 2010...so far this is coming true!
 
C
Camo
sapo said:
It's a massive pain to go through all of the moon phases for five years time, but I'm halfway through 2010...so far this is coming true![/QUOTE

Folk lore has a way of sticking around when the chances are good that they might be correct. (to some extent)
The old verse '' Red skies in the morning is a sailers warning. Red skies at night is a sailers delight.'' has saved me from getting soaked more then just a few times. That particular phrase even made it into the Bible 2000 years ago at Matthew 16:2-3.

I once had the experience of fishing with an old Indian friend when the sun busted through the clouds and shot a beam of light on the lake. To me, it looked a column of mist from the water to the sky. The old man looked at me and said,'' Lookie there! The sun is drawing water again! Damn if it ain't gunna rain all week !''


It rained steady for the next five days!

:)
 

Similar threads

troutdude
Replies
7
Views
286
hobster
hobster
F
Replies
1
Views
1K
scched
scched
troutdude
Replies
0
Views
149
troutdude
troutdude
O
Replies
10
Views
1K
OregonApe
O
Admin
Replies
0
Views
247
Admin
Admin
Top Bottom