The use of sun and moon tables has received a lot of press lately. Many of the Muskie guides that I have had the occasion to share a beer with do use the relationship between the sun and moon as an indicator of times with good Muskie potential. Very simply put, sun rise and sun set are times to be on your favorite patch of water. Likewise, moon rise and moon set also demand your attention. When either sun rise or sun set happen at "roughly" the same time as moon rise or moon set, Muskie are likely to be aggressively feeding. You should try to be on the water and on your spot a half hour before and a half hour after any occurrence of sun and/or moon rise and/or set. There is also a school of thought that fishing is likely to be better when the moon is down than when the moon is up. If you sit down with a sun & moon table and arrange your fishing schedule by these sun and moon events, you will soon discover, as I did, that some serious modification to your normal sleep patterns will be required. The bottom line to all of this is that your personal knowledge about the body of water that you are on and the action on that body of water that you have experienced can not be replaced by dispassionate meteorological facts. Sun & moon tables are only another bit of useful information for you to add to your wealth of Muskie fishing facts as you set out on your Muskie excursions.

If you want to use sun and moon tables you should keep in mind certain facts. The sun and moon do not rise and set at the same time in each time zone. Remember that the earth is not only rotating; it is also tilted on its axis. The moon is also moving around the earth in its own unique orbit. These physical characteristics mean that sun and moon rise and set will vary depending upon the longitude and latitude of a particular location. For instance, a person fishing in Eagle River Wisconsin will have different times for sun and moon rise and set than a person fishing in Rockford Illinois.

If you want to make your own tables you can use the method identified below. However, if you want to use the internet to make your moon tables, you can go to http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php. Once you are at that website, just scroll down the page and enter your information in the fields provided. It is really quick and easy!!!

The first step in making your own sun and moon tables is getting a copy of "The Old Farmers Almanac ®". The cost is around $4.95. I get my copy from my local bookstore. Make sure that you get the version that covers all 16 regions of the United States rather than just an Eastern or Midwestern version. As you page through the almanac, you will come across a series of tables for each month of the year. These tables list a wealth of facts for each day of each month. We, as Muskie fishermen, are interested in the facts about sun and moon rise and set. Next to the listing of the sun and moon rise and set information is a "key" letter. This key letter is associated with a "times correction table". The times correction table lists multiple cities all across the US. Each listed city shows the number of minutes that must be added or subtracted from listed sun and moon rise and set times on the monthly table. It sounds complicated but it is really very easy. As an example lets take July 1, 1998.

Sun rise for 7/1/98 is listed as 5:11am. The "Key" letter next to sun rise is an "A". Lets say that we are fishing a body of water near Aberdeen South Dakota. Flip to the "time correction table (usually page 214)" and find the city of Aberdeen South Dakota. Now look under the letter "A" associated with Aberdeen and you will see that +37 is listed. This means that 37 minutes must be added to our sun rise time for 7/1/98 of 5:11am. After adding the 37 minutes to the 7/1/98 sun rise time, we see that sun rise in Aberdeen South Dakota occurs at 5:48am. if you make 5 columns on a piece of paper. as shown here, all you have to do is pencil in the corrected times. For our example that would be:

July 1998 for Aberdeen South Dakota

The same day for Bemidji Minnesota would be:

You can construct sun and moon tables for the whole month or season or just pick out the day you are interested in from the almanac and calculate it. Personally, I like to see a complete month so that I can easily see those days when sun and moon events are closest to happening at the same time. This lets me plan easily and, in the event of some unsettled weather, I can quickly see the times when I ought to be on the water, safety permitting.

Tight Lines

Author's Note: Below you will see a Sun and Moon table that I created for my trip the the Chippewa Flowage in June of 2009. All data came from the Internet.

All Times are in 24 hour notation.

Date	Moon Rise	Moon Set	Sun Rise	Sun Set	Phase
6/1/2009	1347	53	419	1950
6/2/2009	1458	113	418	1950
6/3/2009	1608	134	417	1951
6/4/2009	1718	158	417	1952
6/5/2009	1825	227	417	1953
6/6/2009	1928	301	416	1954
6/7/2009	2023	343	416	1954
6/8/2009	2110	433	416	1955
6/9/2009	2178	531	415	1956
6/10/2009	2219	633	415	1956
6/11/2009	2244	737	415	1957
6/12/2009	2306	842	415	1957
6/13/2009	2325	947	415	1958
6/14/2009	2343	1052	414	1958
6/15/2009		1158	414	1959
6/16/2009	1	1306	414	1959
6/17/2009	21	1417	415	1959
6/18/2009	44	1533	415	2000
6/19/2009	112	1651	415	2000
6/20/2009	149	1809	415	2000
6/21/2009	237	1921	415	2000
6/22/2009	340	2021	415	2001