PrimeBite Fishing Solunar Windows (Baseline) Research & Methodology

Do Solunar Tables Actually Predict Fishing Success?

Last updated: 2026-09-26

This page explains the current Any-fish Sun & Moon schedule. It is a general timing view for fish without a supported species model. It is not a species prediction.

Below: the events the schedule shows, open-access citations with page pointers, and the limits of applying species-specific results to every fish.

How it works (overview)

The Any-fish view shows the day's moon and sun schedule: up to two Major moon-position events, two Minor rise/set events, and the relevant daylight times. Events appear only when they occur at that place and date. “Major” and “Minor” are traditional astronomy-event names. They do not mean better or worse fishing, and the events do not receive scores.

When they occur, dawn and dusk can help anglers choose when to try. They do not create an Any-fish day rating.

Schedule events and evidence

Nothing is scored in the Any-fish schedule. Moon phase, moon position, Major/Minor events, and dawn/dusk add zero rating points because there is no Any-fish day rating. Species with dependable evidence keep their own separate models.

Moon phase — shown, not scored

Shaw et al. 2021 found small moon-phase patterns for walleye in one Wisconsin lake. Its second species did not show the same pattern, so PrimeBite does not treat that result as a universal Any-fish score.

Source (open access): Shaw et al. 2021 — PDF (printable)

"The odds of a successful trip were highest during the gibbous phases… and lowest during the quarter phases…"

(PDF p.13)

Honest limit: this is one study, on one Wisconsin lake, measuring walleye. The same paper's muskellunge result does not agree with it. That is not enough to score every unlisted fish.

Moon position (Major events) — shown, not scored

Shaw et al. 2021 found moon overhead/underfoot positive for one measure of success and negative for another in the same trips. Quigley et al. 2023 directly tested commercial Major peaks and found no predictive benefit. PrimeBite shows the event times without treating “Major” as catch quality.

Moonrise and moonset (Minor events) — shown, not scored

No study we own measures moonrise or moonset as a dependable positive. The direct commercial-table test found trips inside one service's Minor peak caught 42.5% fewer fish per hour. The schedule keeps the event names and times, not a catch-quality claim.

Dawn and dusk — timing guidance

When they occur, dawn and dusk can offer useful low-light timing guidance for many fish. They do not create an Any-fish day rating.

Source (open access): Shaw et al. 2021 — PDF (printable)

"Mean daily solar radiation had a negative effect on walleye trip success… The observed percent of successful trips tended to increase with decreasing solar intensity …"

(PDF p.11)

Dawn and dusk remain useful times to consider. The app keeps that guidance next to the schedule.

What is not scored

No condition is scored in this schedule. Moon illumination, wind, rain, air pressure, air temperature and season also do not create an Any-fish day rating.

The evidence against solunar tables

This page is an evidence review, so it has to carry the result that goes against us. It is the most on-topic study we know of, and it tested the exact thing this page is about: do the commercial solunar tables predict fishing success? Its answer is no.

Source (open access): Quigley, González Murcia & Kauwe 2023 — Popular solunar tables fail to predict fishing success in North American recreational freshwater trout fisheries, SN Applied Sciences 5:162

What they did

One experienced angler logged 361 fishing trips over 221 separate days and 1,355.2 hours, from September 2013 to February 2019, on rivers, streams, lakes and reservoirs in and around Utah, USA — fly fishing, spinning rod and ice fishing (p.3). They then scored every one of those days against the daily ratings published by seven solunar services, and against moon phase, lunar illumination, air temperature and wind speed (p.4). Success was measured three ways: catch per hour, trophy fish (over 18 inches) per hour, and the angler’s own 0–100 rating of the day.

What they found

• None of the seven services predicted anything. Twenty-one tests, and the smallest p-value was 0.051 (Table 1, p.4). The paper’s own table caption reads: “No regression reached significance (p < 0.006)”.
• Moon phase and lunar illumination predicted nothing either — moon phase p = 0.758 and illumination p = 0.737 against catch rate (Table 3, p.6).
• The only solunar results that reached significance pointed the wrong way. Two of them, both on the same row: a trip that fell entirely inside a Fishing and Hunting Solunar Time minor peak caught 42.5% fewer fish per hour (p = 0.001) and scored 18 points lower on the angler’s own rating (p = 0.005) than a trip outside the peak (Table 2, p.5). Not better fishing during a minor window. Worse.
• Plain air temperature beat every table. Warmer air went with a higher catch rate (p = 2.49 × 10⁻⁶) and a higher angler rating (p = 7.16 × 10⁻⁴); it did not reach their threshold for trophy fish (Table 3, p.6).
• These are informative nulls, not a small sample shrugging. The authors report 99% power to detect a medium effect, and they tightened their own significance threshold to p < 0.006 to account for testing many things at once (p.4).

"We conclude that solunar rating is not an effective measure for predicting fishing success in recreational freshwater trout fisheries in Utah. None of the daily ratings from seven of the most popular solunar table services showed any significant relationship to increased CPUE."

(PDF p.7, Conclusions)

What this study does and does not settle

The bounds belong on the page too, and they cut both ways.

• One angler. Every trip is the same person. The authors say so plainly, and argue it removes skill differences from the analysis rather than adding them: “The use of data from a single angler excluded possible variations in fishing skill from the analysis, however, this does not impact the ability of the study to examine the relationship between solunar tables and CPUE” (p.3). It still bounds how far the result travels past one angler’s gear and habits.
• Trout water, and not only trout. The catch is rainbow, cutthroat, brown and brook trout plus hybrids — and mountain whitefish (Prosopium spp.), which is not a trout but is counted inside what the paper’s own title calls trout fisheries (p.3). Catch rate is not broken out by species, so the headline number is a mixed rate.
• The authors themselves say the answer may be species-specific. “As species of different taxa may exhibit very different behavioral and feeding patterns, it is likely that any relationship between CPUE and lunar phase is species specific” (p.6). That is a caution against reading their null as a universal no — and, in the same breath, against anyone reading a single lake’s positive result as a universal yes.

What we do about it

We are not going to pretend this study away, and we are not going to overstate it either. Two honest readings sit side by side: Shaw et al. 2021 found a small positive moon-position effect on walleye in one Wisconsin lake, and Quigley et al. 2023 found nothing, at high power, testing the commercial tables directly in Utah trout water. That is why PrimeBite’s Any-fish view is an unscored Sun & Moon schedule instead of turning these mixed results into a catch score. PrimeBite keeps the times because anglers use them; it removes the number because the evidence does not justify a universal score.

Key definitions & verification sources

Civil twilight (timing reference)

Used for: Defining dawn and dusk times in the unscored schedule. This timing reference does not create a day score.

Source (open access): NWS/NOAA — Twilight definitions

"Morning civil twilight begins when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon, and ends at sunrise. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset, and ends when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon."

Limitations / Caveats

• Any fish is a general schedule, not a species-verified rating.
• It is available for general trip planning when you are not using a supported species rating.
• This is a general schedule, not a species prediction. The positive evidence comes mainly from one lake and one species, while the strongest direct test of commercial solunar tables found no predictive benefit in a different fishery.
• A powered study found the commercial solunar tables do not predict catch. Quigley, González Murcia & Kauwe 2023 tested seven services over 361 trips and 1,355 hours in Utah trout water and found none of them significant, with 99% power for a medium effect — and the two significant solunar results it did find were negative. See the evidence against.
• Minor windows carry the least support of anything on this page. The only owned study that has tested them directly found time inside a minor peak associated with a lower catch rate, not a higher one (Quigley et al. 2023, Table 2 p.5).
• PrimeBite keeps the times because anglers use them; it removes the number because the evidence does not justify a universal score.

Changelog

• Public since version 1.6.6: Any fish is an unscored Sun & Moon schedule. Major, Minor, moon phase, dawn and dusk remain timing information and do not create a day rating.
• Retired model — 2026-09-14: The earlier fallback model kept moon phase as its only scored driver after Major windows, Minor windows and dawn/dusk overlap were removed from the day score. This is historical only and does not describe the current schedule.
• 2026-09-14: Added the evidence against solunar tables (Quigley, González Murcia & Kauwe 2023) with its numbers, limits and species-specific caveat.
• 2026-03-31: Added explicit limitations/caveats and restored a public changelog section for the current full-audit standard.
• 2026-02-22: Baseline docs and code aligned after the quarter-cap cleanup.
• 2026-02-15: Published the Baseline transparency page with research-backed vs calibrated variable labeling.