Occur when the moon is directly overhead or underfoot. These are the strongest feeding times of the day.
Minor Periods (1-2 hours)
Occur during moonrise and moonset. Secondary feeding windows that still offer good activity.
May 2026 Fishing Calendar
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
1🌕C+
2🌕B
3🌕C+
4🌖C+
5🌖C
6🌖C
7🌖C
8🌗C+
9🌗C
10🌗D
11🌗C
12🌘C
13🌘C
14🌘C+
15🌑C+
16🌑C+
17🌑C+
18🌒C+
19🌒C
20🌒B
21🌒C+
22🌓D
23🌓D
24🌓D
25🌔C
26🌔C
27🌔C
28🌔C+
29🌕C+
30🌕C+
31🌕C+
Best (A/A+)
Good (B/B+)
Fair (C/C+)
Poor (D/F)
Spring Fishing Tips
Spring brings warming waters and pre-spawn activity. Fish move shallow to feed heavily. Focus on warming flats, creek channels, and areas with early vegetation. Morning bite improves as water temperatures rise.
Best Fishing Days in May 2026
The top-rated fishing days in May 2026 are May 2, May 20, May 1, May 16, May 31, based on solunar activity, moon phases, and major/minor feeding periods. Each day in our free fishing almanac is graded from A+ (excellent) to F (poor) so you can plan your trips around peak fish activity.
Spring Fishing: Spring brings warming waters and pre-spawn activity. Fish move shallow to feed heavily. Focus on warming flats, creek channels, and areas with early vegetation. Morning bite improves as water temperatures rise.
What the Fish Are Doing in May
Pre-spawn (6 species)
Smallmouth Bass, Musky, Striped Bass, Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Tarpon feed hard before spawning in May, and our scoring raises their activity by up to 1.35x. Look for smallmouth bass on rocky shallows 3-8 ft.
Spawning (11 species)
Black Sea Bass, Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Northern Pike, Rainbow Trout, Smallmouth Bass, Striped Bass, Tarpon, Walleye spawn during May. Fish on beds are harder to tempt, so our grades apply a spawn-lockout penalty. Target pre-spawn and post-spawn species instead, or fish deeper staging areas nearby. Some species appear in both lists because spawning runs across the month, with northern waters lagging southern ones by several weeks.
Post-spawn recovery (5 species)
Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Northern Pike, Rainbow Trout, Walleye are recovering from the spawn in May. Expect a short lull before they return to normal feeding, and favour slower presentations near spawning flats.