I grew up saltwater fishing, and we fished based on the tides. What do you prefer on freshwater. I feel like the first couple hours of light and last couple seem best, but don't know how accurate that is. I've been thinking of going based on the solunar tables. Any thoughts on that? I mostly chase whites and Stripers.

Fish are weird. The standard answer is often the first hour of sunlight and the last hour of sunlight are the best. But, we all know that the real answer is they bite when they want to bite. Some days it might be at noon, or 9 am or 3 pm or whenever. I have found that the location and time of bite is very inconsistent. If you want to catch, sometimes you have to be on the water for 4-5 hours to find the 45 minutes when they are most active and feeding.

A friend swears by the solunar tables. He usually checks them when he returns home from fishing and he says they are relatively accurate. Like me, he goes when he has a chance to go and does not base his trips on the solunar tables. Me, I do not understand why a fish would bite based on the position of the sun and moon especially in the day time.

I have never been able to put any evidence to it, but when I was a kid if me and my dad were driving to a fishing hole and the cows were laying down in a pasture he would turn around and go home. As for me, I fish when I can. I have heard good things about lunar tables but they don't coincide with my work schedule.

Fish are like me. I eat when I'm hungry. Sometimes I eat based on the availability of food. If there is an apple pie on the table when I walk by some of it is gonna come up missing.
I think fish are like that. The exception is pre-spawn gorging and post-spawn gorging to recover the reserves they have lost. Fish are trainable. Especially pond fish where you have a feeder on a timer.
That's why repeated chumming of a spot produces lots of fish day or night.

Major feeding times for freshwater fish are when the moon is directly overhead and when the moon is directly underfoot. Minor feeding times are when the moon rises and when it sets. They will begin feeding 30-45 minutes before those times and wrap up 30-45 minutes after those times. Fishing any other times is a waste of time and bait.
Cows, pigs, and deer follow the same feeding schedule. That is why people watch the cows and go fishing when the cows are feeding. I use the naval observatory website to plan my trips. http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO
From the main page click on "astronomical applications". Then click on "Complete Sun and Moon data for one day". Then fill in the blanks for your city, state, and date you want to see the rise/set times for.

The best time to fish is simply when you can.

My experience has been that weather & air pressure has more effect than time of day. Have had plenty of skunked mornings and plenty of non-stop catching at noon.

what KC said,..

I agree with KC too. If you had time to fish everyday all day whenever you wanted or could I will bet you that you would find the bite different on different days. The best thing to do is study the solunar tables as well as the weather and from my experience from reading forums and finding out what works best on what lake and when. I have done searches for years past and found what they using and when I go around the same time of month I can usually duplicate the efforts of those years past.
Experience and just getting out to fish whenever you can is your best bet.

I've been paying attention to the solunar table and my fishing, and there is definitely a correlation. I've noticed similar pattern to what Bluesea posted. Best catch was Hour before and after Major. Though I did catch fish through out the day, just much more sporadic. I'll continue to test this if the water levels ever come down enough to fish lakes close to me.

Just before and after dawn is the best time,
ignoring tables,pressure,or other weather,or lake conditions

I fish when I can, but I seem to be more focused during solunar high and low periods. I think bass often feed more at dusk, midnight, and dawn - but most of my biggest bass were caught within an hour of noon. Go figure.

Notice he said "fish" and not "catch".

The best time to fish or catch is as soon as I can get there. I don't care if cows are laying or flying, I'm going. I can't even spell soulanor so that don't matter either. Only thing keeps me off the water is lightning. Other than that, I'm going. Worse thing that can happen I get a lot of time practicing my casting.