The moon, tides and pelagics

[tropicrows]

Had the opportunity to talk to two very experienced fishermen this week about fishing for pelagics (marlin, tuna, spanish mac's etc). What was interesting was the totally different thoughts they had on how the moon effects there feeding habits. One said this weekend with the full moon it will be going off, the other said the moon phase is not important its more about water temp and what bait is around. So what do the rest of you guys think ????.

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[tropicrows]

Mods please move to general fishing chat.

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[Noelm]

I have spoken about this with dozens of different people (good fishermen) and all have mixed ideas, BUT... the common thread to all of them was tide changes, even if you are out on the shelf, they all reckon changes in tide make a big difference, true or not? don't know, according to long line fishermen, who usually fish the full moon, most pelagics will feed at night during the moon, once again, true or not? I know down here, most game fishermen will concentrate their trolling efforts around the tide change, but then, if you find a lot of bait out in the middle of nowhere, that's where I concentrate efforts, regardless of tide or moon or anything else.

[Volvo]

How different this can be depending on where you live ey..For instance when i used to live in Woobligong (Wollongong) lol we used to chase bream quite regular and would look towards the Dark periods of the Moon and comming up towards full tide.
Move up here to Queensland and my knowledge is turned upside down a tad and now i find that leading up to and waning from a Full Moon works best for me and run in run out tide so yes the tides play a big role as does the Moon as does the wind direction ..Its said that the Moon does have an effect on the feeding pattern of when and what times they come on the chew the best Hense your "Soluna Tide Times : which are supposd to predict the best times for Fish as well as Hunting..
Have i followed or believe in these times or supposed predictions ?? "Yes " have been close enough for this little vegymite and mostly wont go out unless all line up as well as MY North easters offcourse or unless i havent been out fer yonks and need a Hit( Fishingwise that is )..
I own a Casio Tide n Time watch and found its near spot on for when it sez the fish will come on the chew .. Mindyou the fish have to be where you are at the same time for this to pan out ey..
In the above post where Noelm advises to concentrate where there may be bait congregating can and should make a big difference also but can sometime work against you also if the Fish happen to have a full gut which has been my experience sometimes chasing Reds n Lipper..
Can see the shoals of bait, can jig up, whack em on a hook and score a couple of times and then they go off the chew yet they still show up on the sounder!!??..Maybe their feeding time has passed???...
And still will stop where i see bait congregating too , Specially if they happen to be "Yakkas"..
Hope thats helped you a wee bit ey???...

[lbger]

the full moon tends to have larger pelagics hunting at night and are sometimes un co-operative during the day.. this may be altered by cloud cover.. water temps deff help but i believe its all about the bait.. fished too many times when everything was perfect, water temp,clarity,current,moon phase etc but no bait and no matter what, you just cant turn a reel on the troll...

[Noelm]

Yep agree LBGer, find the bait, find the fish, this time of the year is Marlin time for us, and we just troll in known locations untill we find bait, even if it is 50m below the surface (or ,
more) that's where we concentrate.

[tropicrows]

That's what we did yesterday of Mooloolaba just worked around the bait all day, trying different things and kept trying different things when it went quite.

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[ifishcq1]

there are different things that make different spots work
big tides mean fast flow and pelagics especially spanish will work reef passes and pinnacles around the new and full moons when we get the bigger tides
up here the full and new moons mean high tide is about 9.30 give or take a little
the optimum spaniard time is when any high tide is before lunch
the saying is 4 x 10 which is a 4m tide around 10am
then you have the rubble patches which work almost any time early in the morning when there are bait schools are present
although personal best was 75 spaniards in a morning at Bustard Heads four days after the moon when the tides were dropping
another tip is picking mackerel from tuna from a distance, tuna will push the bait schools and often leave the water when feeding while mackerel push the bait schools to the surface and the baits leave the water

cheers

[fishychrissy]

I was told by an old fella years ago if you're lucky enough t be able to line up a high or low tide with either moon rise or moon set then that is an almost guaranteed hot bite. Unfortunately I haven't been lucky enough to ever be able to do that knowingly! But it does raise the question that maybe good sessions that just defy logic may even have coincided with those important lunar periods without even realising it?
Cheers