Piscator: Fishing Calendar

Piscator works out the solunar periods for the place you fish or hunt. Two major periods hang on the Moon crossing your meridian, overhead and underfoot; two minor periods hang on moonrise and moonset. Every one of them is shown as a window on the day's own clock, with the daylight and the twilight drawn behind it. Everything is computed on your phone from the real position of the Moon: no data file, no account, no network call. Pick a town from the built-in list or type the coordinates of a lake no list knows. The phone's position is offered once, is never required, and never leaves the device. THE DAY ON ONE BAR • Major and minor periods as intervals, from midnight to midnight at your place, so you see at a glance which ones fall at first light or last light. • What is running now and what comes next, in a warm colour you can read from arm's length. • For every major period, the Moon's actual altitude at that moment, above or below the horizon, and how much of it is lit. Facts you can check, next to a tradition you can take or leave. • Days with three periods instead of four, drawn just as calmly. The Moon runs about fifty minutes later every day, so about once a month a rise or a set falls on the next calendar day. A RATING YOU CAN TAKE APART Solunar tables have rated days since John Alden Knight published the first ones in 1926. Piscator rates them too, but never as a bare number. Under every rating stand the rows that made it: how close the day is to the new or full Moon, how many periods overlap dawn or dusk twilight, and whether the day carries all four periods. Perigee can be switched on as a fourth row, because some tables count it and others do not. The widths of the major and minor periods are yours to set, with the reason beside each slider. WHAT IS IN IT • Today, with the day's periods, the Sun and the Moon, and the rating with its rows. • A month calendar of rated days; tap any day for its periods and its reasons. • A log of catches and outings. Every entry remembers which period it fell in and how wide the periods were set at the time. After thirty catches it counts how many fell in major periods, minor periods and neither, and draws no conclusion for you. • Fish by water and month, or game by habitat, with the ones whose twilight matches today's periods marked. • Several saved places, each read on its own clock, so a trip abroad reads in the local time you will be living in there. • Nine written articles, including why the Moon underfoot counts, why some days have only three periods, and why this is not a tide table. • A home-screen widget that changes when a period opens or closes, not at midnight. • An optional note half an hour before each major period. HOW THE TIMES ARE MADE The Moon's position comes from the standard published lunar theory, with the difference between clock time and the Earth's rotation applied. Measured against NASA's JPL Horizons over 1950 to 2030, its longitude is off by 12 arc-seconds rms. Moonrise and moonset allow for the Moon's parallax at its distance that day and for the bending of light at the horizon. Your own horizon, a hill or open sea, is the one thing no calculation can know. WHAT PISCATOR DOES NOT DO It does not promise a catch. The evidence for lunar influence on fish and game is mixed, and light, water temperature, pressure and tide consistently matter more; one of the articles says so plainly. It does not predict tides, and it says nothing about seasons, licences or size limits, which change by country and by year. Free to install, with ads. A single one-time purchase removes them.