Secretary
Moonstruck or What?...
It is often said that nature is influenced by the cycles of the moon. Some people only plant their garden seeds according to their lunar calendars and apparently there are more public behaviour arrests when there is a new moon ! For many years Chris Lyons has compiled evidence of the connection between fish feeding patterns and the movements of the moon on his www.moonstrike.co.uk website.
When members Mike Kitchener and Chris Humphrey recently caught large carp simultaneously on the Rother I wondered whether this was pure coincidence or whether the "moonstrike theory" could offer an explanation. According to the theory, the day before and the next couple of days after each of the four quarters are most favourable - these are New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon and Last Quarter, the total cycle being completed in 28 days. Within these days the most favourable times are the hours around moonrise and moonset and at the two "mid-points" between these times.
Mike and Chris caught their carp at 9.30 pm on 23rd June, 2007. So was this a prime date and time according to "The Theory" ?
The moon entered its First Quarter on 22nd June so prospects according to "The Theory" were GOOD.
So what about the time of day? That day Moonrise was at 14:15 and Moonset was at 01.03 (BST) that night. The mid-point (the "high transit point") therefore fell somewhere around 19:50 and according to "The Theory" the prime time would extend a couple of hours either side of this time. So again we can see that the carp were caught within the time period that "The Theory" would have predicted as GOOD.
It might be a load of mumbo-jumbo but on this occasion these two exceptional carp were caught both on a day and at a time that Moonstrike would have predicted as having good prospects.
Food for thought !............Geoff Sumner
