I devoted a sizeable chunk of July to chasing the Speckled Trout, Redfish, and Blue Crabs of Grand Isle, Louisiana.  My eagerness to fill my freezer with fish fillets and lump crab meat would have been better served by learning how the tides and moon phases effect fishing in coastal areas.

I’ve heard old fishermen talking about how good the fishing gets when the tides and moon are just right, but I always wrote that off as superstition and mumbo jumbo…I’ve learned it’s not.

The excitement and high expectations for the trip faded as it took 2 days of constant casting before I got my first keeper trout.  You don’t notice the true weight of your surf fishing setup until you’ve thrown and reeled your lure all morning and all afternoon with no bites.

I started talking to the fishing gurus back at the marina and they told me how just one week before people were lined up on the beach catching trout two at a time on double sparkle beetle jigs.  They said people were wading into the surf with a length of cotton twine and a chicken neck and catching laundry baskets full of fat blue crabs in a matter of hours.

At first I thought the fishing gurus were just delusional.  They were double fisting beers at 2 in the afternoon on a Tuesday after all.  These old captains were probably so drunk they didn’t know which island they were on.  As I listened to their slurred explanations about how the moon’s phase and position in the sky along with the difference in water level at high and low tides determined when the fish were moving and more importantly when they were eating, it all started making sense.

Here’s the situation as I understand it.  The best days for fishing are when there is a full or new moon.  The moon is having its greatest effect on the tides during these phases.  You want a big difference in high and low tide too.  The bigger the difference in the tides, the more water you have rolling in or going out.  Those large tides carry more bait fish, shrimp, and other introductory members of the food chain.  When the moon and tides are right the fish are feasting and that’s when you want to put your pole in the water.

Just like clockwork, as the moon started to grow in the sky and the tides got bigger the fishing just switched on, my excitement and expectations rose, and I committed to consulting the lunar and tidal calendars before any salt water fishing trip.

If you want a great resource for lunar and tidal information along the gulf coast check out Rodnreel.com.

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