Major vs minor periods: how to plan your day around them

What separates a major from a minor window, how long each lasts, and a simple routine for choosing when to go out.

Open Solunar and you'll see colored arcs around a 24-hour dial. Orange arcs are major periods, sage arcs are minor periods. Here's what the difference means on the ground.

Major periods: the long windows

A major period is centered on the moment the moon is directly overhead or directly underfoot. It lasts about two hours — an hour either side of the peak.

Majors are where you want to concentrate your effort: the longest stretch of expected activity, and on good days the strongest.

Minor periods: the short windows

Minors are centered on moonrise and moonset and last about one hour. They're shorter and usually gentler, but don't dismiss them: a minor that lands on sunrise or sunset can outperform a midday major.

Reading the dial

Midnight is at the top of the dial and the day runs clockwise, so noon sits at the bottom. The tan band inside the ring is daylight. That makes a few things easy to spot:

A window that touches the ends of the tan band overlaps sunrise or sunset — that's a sun stack, marked with a small tan dot.
The white knob is now. Drag it around the ring to scan the day; the center shows what each moment holds.
The countdown in the middle tells you how long until the next window opens.

A simple routine

The night before, check tomorrow's stars in the Forecast tab.
Pick one window, ideally a sun-stacked major.
Arrive early. Be quiet and settled 20–30 minutes before it opens.
Stay through it. Activity often builds towards the peak.
Turn on alerts (Premium) and Solunar will tap you on the shoulder 30 minutes before every top window.

What if the best window is at 3 AM?

It happens: the moon doesn't care about your alarm clock. Look further down the dial for the next sun-stacked window, or open the Forecast and find a day where a major lines up with first light. The heatmap makes those mornings jump out.

Put it into practice

See the routine in best time to fish today, or read how to read solunar tables and lake fishing with the solunar calendar.