Anyway to start a new access_log file? I was looking through the log which is 5 months old and it is huge. I wanted to create a new one each month and rename the previous one with the date so I can refer back to them as needed.

If I rename the current acces_log file, will a new one be automatically created?

yes and yes
rename the old one-
restart httpd

use logrotate

/etc/logrotate.conf
+ more stuff in the /etc/logrotate.d and /etc/logrotate dirs

/etc/cron.daily
logrotate