Moon Position and Deer Movement Data

[JoeRE]

Bighills Buckhunter's thread on moon times got me thinking I should post some updated moon time correlations I have been working on.

I have tabulated all 2 year old bucks or older on camera in October-November 2011 and October-November 2012 against the clock position where the moon was in the sky when the trail cam picture or video was taken. I limited it to just older bucks because there were too many photos otherwise. This is what I got:

Clock Position - 2011 2 Year old or older Bucks On Cam - 2012 2 year old or older Bucks on Cam
1-----------------------------9---------------------------------------4
2------------------------------9---------------------------------------4
3 (Moonset)--------------11---------------------------------------5
4---------------------------- 6----------------------------------------6
5-----------------------------10---------------------------------------7
6(Underfoot)--------------7---------------------------------------13
7-----------------------------8----------------------------------------3
8----------------------------10----------------------------------------8
9(Moonrise)---------------5----------------------------------------8
10----------------------------6----------------------------------------8
11---------------------------10----------------------------------------2
12(Overhead)-------------8---------------------------------------13

I am very interested in what everyone else has found. I have seen the data Stanley has posted but don't know if anyone else has added anything up. My results show how deceptive small quantities of data like this can be. By small, I mean anything less than a few thousand is probably inconclusive. If I just showed photos from 2011 - no correlation with traditional good moon times at all! If I just showed 2012 - strong correlation with moon overhead/underfoot! I want to tabulate a few more seasons because of that. Work in progress....

In addition, I previously graphed moon clock position (3 oclock moon set 6 oclock underfoot, 9 oclock moon rise, 12 oclock overhead same as above) against what was observed in 211 bowhunts from 2006 through 2012. Most, but not all, of these hunts are mine but they were all from the same area and similar hunting strategies. I posted some preliminary results from this a while ago from a lesser number of bow hunts but this is much more comprehensive:



Overall, I think my findings support a modest influence by the moon on deer movement but its pretty vague. Moon underfoot, overhead, and moon set are all strongly associated with good deer movement. To be very precise I would need to quantify weather variables, hunting pressure, rut stage, type of deer movement observed (bed to feed, bed to water, rut chasing, forced, etc etc) and a few other things that definitely have more impact on deer movement than moon position might. I have no interest in doing that multivariate analysis

[trapper57]

Good info Joe.
I think when the moon or prime times line up with weather changes or dawn or dusk its time to be in the stand.
I also find that the mid day moon times will get mature bucks on their feet.
I think the mature bucks are moving more often during the middle of day due to hunting pressure.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Stanley]

Interesting Joe.

The hardest part about getting input from everyone is getting unbiased input. Guys that follow the moon charts have a tendency to submit only sightings from the best moon times when they hunted. So they had buck sightings 75% of the time on the best moon days, which equates to very little.

When I did my survey I went consecutive days for the period and counted all bucks not just mature bucks. So my data was not influenced by anything just a raw compilation of data from 10s of thousands of uninterrupted camera pictures. Looks like your survey is unbiased in approach.

[BigHills BuckHunter]

Great work!

Thanks for the info.

[JoeRE]

Interesting Joe.

The hardest part about getting input from everyone is getting unbiased input. Guys that follow the moon charts have a tendency to submit only sightings from the best moon times when they hunted. So they had buck sightings 75% of the time on the best moon days, which equates to very little.

When I did my survey I went consecutive days for the period and counted all bucks not just mature bucks. So my data was not influenced by anything just a raw compilation of data from 10s of thousands of uninterrupted camera pictures. Looks like your survey is unbiased in approach.

I agree Stanley. I will freely admit that I am one of those that think deer activity is increased when moon is overhead/underfoot...and the hard part is trying to ignore that bias while looking at statistics. For instance, when putting together the hunting log stats I threw out every hunt I saw more than 12 deer on regardless of moon position (only a few hunts, seeing that many deer is abnormal for me), because just a couple of abnormal numbers like that really skew averages. Doing that was a judgement call though, it did make the result prettier.

Long story short I do think there probably too much focus on the moon...if you are trying to decide whether or not to hunt, look at weather and rut stage factors first and then just go hunting I know there has been a radio collar study or two that did not support the overhead/underfoot theory but I sure would like to see some broader research on it.

[Exophysical]

IMO figuring out which days are best spent hunting is very easy. For those of us who are married it revolves around a mysterious, yet generaly predictable "cycle" that has nothing whatsoever to do with the moon

[headgear]

I think exo nailed it!

The other part to consider when calculating the moon's effect is what results we are looking for. Guys hunting bedding areas might hope a buck moves 10-15 minutes sooner than normal to have a better chance at getting an arrow in a buck before shooting light runs out. Others might need that same buck to show up in a travel corridor or food source to make good. Others yet are looking for rut movement in the morning or mid-day. I can't say there is a one size fits all study to prove or disprove anything at this point, lots of variables and lots of guys looking for different things.

[south]

I did an extensive data analysis last year utilizing harvest data for 2011-2012 Ohio and Kentucky (almost 500,000 recorded harvest data points). I was able to tie moon phase, weather (temp and barometric pressure) to each reported harvest. I was looking for trends in moon phase and/or pressure changes. Unfortunately with harvest data, it is skewed toward when people are hunting, as it requires a kill to make it into the data set. As one would imagine, weekends and gun seasons dominate the data. I could find no correlation to moon phase/overhead/underfoot times/pressure/pressure changes/or temps in regards to buck kills. Date seem to correlate with an upward trend of buck kills thru the 2nd week of November. The only conclusions I could make from the data is the one we all know...you cant kill them from the couch. Might try to do it again after this season, although it is like pulling teeth to get Ohio's data.

[south]

I thought I had posted some numbers before....here is the link.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16841

[Stump]

IMO figuring out which days are best spent hunting is very easy. For those of us who are married it revolves around a mysterious, yet generaly predictable "cycle" that has nothing whatsoever to do with the moon

Add 3 kids into the mix.....When there's a free window to hunt, I hunt. If the wind/weather and conditions cooperate, then it's a plus.

[PK_]

IMO figuring out which days are best spent hunting is very easy. For those of us who are married it revolves around a mysterious, yet generaly predictable "cycle" that has nothing whatsoever to do with the moon

Yea I try to schedule to be hunting on that week.

Kidding, my wife is actually pretty easy going. Can't complain a bit.