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.
October 2026 Fishing Calendar
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
1🌖C+
2🌗C+
3🌗C
4🌗C+
5🌘C+
6🌘B
7🌘B
8🌑B+
9🌑B
10🌑B+
11🌑B+
12🌒B+
13🌒B
14🌒C+
15🌒C+
16🌓C+
17🌓C+
18🌓C+
19🌓C+
20🌔C+
21🌔B
22🌔B
23🌔B
24🌕B
25🌕B
26🌕B+
27🌕B+
28🌖B
29🌖B
30🌖B
31🌗C+
Best (A/A+)
Good (B/B+)
Fair (C/C+)
Poor (D/F)
Top 5 day
Grades rate solunar timing and moon phase for the whole US. Water temperature moves a fishing day more than the moon does and depends on where you fish.
Get the full A+ to F grade for your water at bestdaystofish.com
Fall Fishing Tips
Fall triggers aggressive feeding as fish prepare for winter. Follow baitfish migrations and target transition zones. Cooling water pushes fish shallow again. Some of the best fishing of the year.
Best Fishing Days in October 2026
The top-rated fishing days in October 2026 are October 11, October 26, October 27, October 8, October 10, ranked by solunar activity, moon phase, and the strength of each day's major and minor feeding periods. Those are the factors a national calendar can actually know. Water temperature moves a fishing grade far more than the moon does, and it depends entirely on where you fish, so enter your location for a full grade that adds water temperature, weather, and barometric pressure.
October is the autumn feeding peak, and for many anglers the best fishing of the year. Fish put on weight ahead of winter and become noticeably less selective about it, so bigger presentations and faster retrieves start outproducing careful ones. Follow the bait into dying weed beds and onto transition banks, and expect the largest fish of the season to be in play.
Want it on the boat or the fridge? This page doubles as a free printable fishing calendar for October 2026. Use the Print or Save as PDF button at the top and your browser produces a clean one-page PDF of the whole month, grades and moon phases included.
Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Chinook Salmon, Coho Salmon, Flounder, Kokanee, Lake Trout, Landlocked Salmon, Redfish (Red Drum) spawn during October. 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.
Snook are recovering from the spawn in October. Expect a short lull before they return to normal feeding, and favour slower presentations near spawning flats.