Full Moon Weekend

[Red Childress]

For those of you venturing out hunting muskies this weekend, I would like to try a little experiment. How about all of us try and see if we can find a correlation between moving fish and the moon phases for the next couple of days??

If you THINK you had better luck on the water this weekend by either moving or catching fish, please report back and let the rest of us know. No need for locations, baits, etc.....just a little experiment to see how much merit should be given to the moon charts. Weather appears to be relatively stable (at least here) over the next 2 days so maybe we can draw some conclusions.


Yes, I am very sickened with this disease....

[toothyfishman]

Pay close attention to the times you saw/caught fish so we can compare that as well.

[ttabaleulb]

I plan to be on the water for the next 3 days, so hopefully I'll have some sort of data to contribute.

[toothyfishman]

3 days.........Should of called me, I could use a bang off day from work

Good luck, I'll be out saturday only.

[ttabaleulb]

LOL I just need to pound the water and try to get a fish in the boat!!! I'm gettin a little concerned because I am going through vacation pretty fast!!

[allegheny river kid]

Well i'll give friday nights report or else i may forget the times...fished from 330 til 830pm...Raised one mid 30s fish on a dbl 10 at approximately 5:50pm,followed around 5 times on the 8 with his nose sniffing it hard before he darted off, lost a fish of some sorts trolling, probably not a musky at 8:10pm....

[Larry Jones]

I don't know how the Full Moon effects your fishing on the Allegheny River because the water most likey is not as clear as ours is on the Niagara River when we can fish in late June.But what I have found here is when the water is gin clear the best fishing is after dark just before the moon rises from behind the tree tops and just after the moon sets behind the tree tops before the sun rises,the darkest periods.I actualy catch more fish at night on the new moon or dark side of the moon here.Durring daylight I have not found any set pattern between Full & New Moon at all.It will be real interesting to see what patterns come to be on the Allegheny River.I have had more consistant action catching muskies on a falling barometric pressure then a riseing pressure and very tough fishing when the barometric pressure is above 30:25.But that is catching the barometor starting to fall way before the storm even aproaches.Sometimes just the slightest change in wind speed or direction will also triger musky feeding windows,when this happens there usual is a small barometric pressure change that happens at the same time.
The effects of the Full Moon on how muskies react is a very interesting subject,I can't wait to see what you guys find out there on the Allegeny.

[RapRunR]

I was thinking the same thing about the moon and getting out this weekend !! Haven't fished much in a couple weeks and i am getting the bug to throw some hardware. I hear my 9 footer calling, lol.

[Red Childress]

Got a later than normal start (Sat.) yesterday and raised a very nice and (hot) fish but could not convert at 10:30am and then hooked a low-30's musky at 3:30pm and raised another one at 4:00pm. Raised 2 pike just after 4pm as well.

Water was on the drop all day long which made conditions a little tougher for muskies. Trout fishing was pretty much shut down from what I heard.

[allegheny river kid]

Fished sunday from 300 til 900pm....Trolled until 715, landed a nice thick 34in at approximately 345pm on a wiley....never had another rip. Casted til 9 and never raised another fish

[Rich W]

9:55 PM Saturday night.

[Joe M]

We got a late start as we went to a new lake for the 1st time. Got on the water at noon and had a high 30s follow at 1:30pm. Then we trolled and got a Fat 40" at 3:30 and 31" at 4:35. Both fish had full stomachs.We fished till 8pm with no more action. The bluegills were all over the surface and we got the fish trolling 6" lures through them.Water surface temp was 75.

[ppalko]

Red, I think you hit on a major confounding variable with trying to figure out any patterns on the Allegheny, the water level fluctuations due to the dam. My experience and you seem to confirm that is that dropping water is a killer in terms of fish activity. I was out targetting trout Sunday PM and even with a nice hatch going on and what seemed like ideal conditions, I saw no trout or anything else but a few ducks...talk about the river being dead....I think if you want to study the moon effects, you're going to need to find a period of stable water levels.

ppalko

[Red Childress]

I agree.....When I made this thread Friday morning, the water had stabilized and I thought the outflow was going to be consistent over the weekend but I was wrong. Sunday was a very tough day, all day long. Like you, we did not even sniff a trout, walleye, musky or pike. We managed 1 bass just South of Warren. Surface activity was zero and 3-4 different hatches coming off......the few fisherman I spoke with had not had a bump and they were using live bait.

[toothyfishman]

Only fished on saturday.

1 muskie at 1:15 PM, no other follows or sightings.

Got two bonus species, 18" smallie, 22" walleye on muskie lures.

[Ivan]

Dad and I had good action day Saturday. Nothing big but had action from 16 fish. Just 1 on Sunday.

Sat:
11:00-11:30 caught 1 casting and had 3 follows
1:00 1 follow
1:30 1 rip trolling but no hookup
2:10 caught 1 trolling
2:50-3:15 caught 2 casting (at the same time/double), had 1 miss and 3 follows
3:35 caught 1 trolling
5:00 caught 1 casting
7:00 lost 1 casting

11:00-11:30 and 2:50-3:15 were definitely our best times but I attributed that to the particular spots we were casting at those times.

Sun:
1:45 caught 1 trolling

all fish were smaller at 29.5"-38.5" except for one follow that was probably 40-42"

[Red Childress]

Other than dawn and dusk, the Muskies, Inc. calendar, Saturday's hot times were Midnight-12:18am and then 11:51am-12:43pm.

Sunday's times were 12:21am-1:07am and then 12:46pm-1:32pm.

[cband]

Saturday 8:25 pm-34"
No other sightings all day

Sunday 7:30 am follow and splash at a topwater
1:10-smaller fish follow
1:25 caught the small fish approx 30"

Around 8:30 to 11, we anchored and my daughter and wife fished for anything that would bite a nightcrawler. The small channels, drum, and rockbass were very cooperative.

All activity on the lower Allegheny

[jah1317]

Went out on sunday, pretty slow day had one mid 30" fish take a swing at my phantom at 12:15 could not get her to come back and take another bite. I never got any good hooks in her might have gotten one point. Other than that worked on patching my boat so I can get her on the water ASAP..... it's gonna be a while though..... once it's done I will be looking for passengers!

Good luck,

Jacob

[river rat24]

Friday afternoon was the only time I was able to get on the water for any amount of time. River didn't produce, so I hit the dew drop area around 530pm. 6pm or so I had 2 respectable musky follows on 2 casts with both instances losing interest after 2nd or 3rd figure eight. Same fish? Maybe. 630pm had 2 more follows on 2 casts, both were very large walleyes chasing musky lures. Only hooked up with small walleyes and some bass.

[ttabaleulb]

Jeff and I fished Sunday all day and got off the water around 1pm today. Decided to troll through some pods of baitfish and POW, 48" of Musky on on the end of the line for Jeff to tackle. He did a fine job of getting her to the boat and we had a tough time getting her in the net. This was the most "net shy" Musky I had ever seen. She knew what was going on and wanted NOTHING to do with it. LOL She hit at 11:40 am Sunday. That was the only sniff of Musky we had the rest of the time.

Just can't seem to find any real casting bite this year. Anyone else running into this? I mean, I have hit the weeds, points, breaks, trees, stumps, etc... with only a couple of follows. One of those follows was fishing open water over pods of baitfish. So much for my logbook from last year!!! LOL

[allegheny river kid]

Jeff and I fished Sunday all day and got off the water around 1pm today. Decided to troll through some pods of baitfish and POW, 48" of Musky on on the end of the line for Jeff to tackle. He did a fine job of getting her to the boat and we had a tough time getting her in the net. This was the most "net shy" Musky I had ever seen. She knew what was going on and wanted NOTHING to do with it. LOL She hit at 11:40 am Sunday. That was the only sniff of Musky we had the rest of the time.

Just can't seem to find any real casting bite this year. Anyone else running into this? I mean, I have hit the weeds, points, breaks, trees, stumps, etc... with only a couple of follows. One of those follows was fishing open water over pods of baitfish. So much for my logbook from last year!!! LOL

I was just thinking the same thing yesterday...Only real action i'm getting has been trolling covering water where i wouldn't spend time casting...10 to 15ft of water and long flats of shallower water with no cover. Idk these fish never follow the rules i guess!

[ttabaleulb]

LOL You can say that again!! I believe that these fish just make up things as they go. Interesting thing is that I spoke with a guy over the weekend who I believe said that he has been Musky fishing for 20+ yrs. I mentioned that I have been trying to keep a good logbook to help out and he seemed rather amused by that. LOL He did not seem convinced that there were any hard-set patterns to find with these fish. And, in the short time that I have been chasing them, I am starting to believe him. I'll continue updating my log, but more as a side project.

Seems that most of the Musky guys that I am running into in my neck of the woods are not hitting fish where they would expect them either so far this year. I'm wondering if some of these temperature fluctuations have caused the fish to stay deeper this Spring. Heck, in one weekend, we saw surface temps go from 78 down to 65. I'd imagine that those fish would get to a level of stable temp and stay there. I'm marking plenty of big fish, but they are out in the deeper waters in the main portions of the lakes.

Well, no-one said that it would be easy. The frustrating part for me is that I do not like to troll and I basically have not even had a shot at a Musky with the Flyrod this year. Could be a LONG year for me!! LOL

[jah1317]

My fish have not been relating to structure this year either, they are locating off the structure by 10 - 15' it seems. Especially if there is a pool infront of a log or some other structure they are located in the "pool' or deeper area that does not have any structure. had a fish scare the s#$t out of me on sunday when it took a swing at my glider in the middle of the stream... there usually are not fish there...... who knows

jacob

[muskie52]

I didn't get out until Monday around noon. I had 3 small follows between 1:00 and 1:30pm. Two were probably the same fish.

[vakeith]

As for us down south boys the june full moon is usally as hot as gets for night time topwater action. We got hit with 3'' of rain Thur. and the river climbed 4 feet so no fishing this weekend. For us I think the river level and flow play a bigger factor than the moon if they are gen. elec we can time it from the dam to where we want to fish and when we want to catch them it makes that much differance. ONe of our hot spots it takes 12 hours for the change to get there but time it rite and your in for action not just follows.

[muskyjerk]

I caught 2 musky this weekend (Sun June 7 @ approx 8pm and Mon At 9am.)
Hooked and lost 3 (one w/ Red on Sat, And one before and after the 8 pm fish on Sun).
My best Musky fishing weekend in a year. Red putting me on the pattern could have been more of a factor than the full moon. Thank you Red!

[Red Childress]

Nice job on landing that fish the following day......Is Gary still having nightmares about the big one??

My guess is that your persistence was the deciding factor in your success the following day. Finding the fish and staying on them during the course of the day will pay huge dividends over the long haul.

Good luck!