New moon position-deer activity telemetry study

[Lu Rome]

And for the record, I believe that the moon has some influence, but I just haven't seen any research that has shown it to be true. We're still dealing in the realm of anecdotal evidence.

[headgear]

Ok Lu, that makes sense. Sounds like you have a background in science and speak the language a little better than me. I was basing that off our historical moon conversations which were solely focus on overhead/underfoot moon times and increased movement during prime hours. So in reality the study doesn't tell us what we want to know and is just another moon study that misses the boat so to speak. However it did open my eyes to the moon rise/set times possibly playing a roll that I had previously ignored so I am going to look into that a bit more along with the overhead/underfoot times.

[headgear]

However, from the outset the study was intended to look at solunar calendars and how they rank days (1-4) and the movements around the major and minor feeding periods, and they did that. But as we've discussed, if the moon has any influence, it will be secondary to the effect of the sun which is what Stanley is saying.

I think this if where the confusion lies, we have never paid much attention to the total solunar calendars or forcasts. Not sure if I have been debating with people that have or not but they would have to clear that up. I have even ignored the Murry moon guide save for a handful of days each month. This movement I am talking about, which we have talked about on this site for 5+ years now is the moon making the last hour of light even better than your average day. The deer move earlier or travel more on some of these specific days. Hopefully that makes more sense.

[Lu Rome]

I would guess too that the researchers aren't aware of how guys like you look at the influence of the moon. They see calendars and hunt and fish prediction times on GPS units and researched what they knew. If only they spent more time on The Beast.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Stanley]

But Stan we are talking about earlier than average movement, maybe that is the confusion. Lets say a group of does show up in a field on average of a half hour before dark on most nights, just an example. Then on a possible moon evening when the oh/uf or moon rise/set times are an hour before last light we are trying to predict that the deer will be up and moving earlier, hitting the field an hour before last light. It is that extra time and distance they travel we are looking for.

That might not mean anything to your average hunter but we take things a little more serious around here, sometimes 5-10 minutes of extra light or a buck moving another 25-50 yards can make or break a season. It's about paying attention to these details.

I understand where you think the moon might effect buck movement. It may very well happen, I just cant prove it out. Here is why; there aren't enough hunters to gather data from that get close enough to see the buck in it's bed. In my poll of Beast members, 90 percent saw only 2 or less bucks in beds on their hunts in a season. 63 % of Beast hunters never see bucks in their beds when hunting during a season.

I personally don't have the skill to consistently get close enough to physically see the buck in it's bed. I also can't find many beds that are used on a daily basis to gather data from. I wish I could because I would put a camera on a well used bed in a heart beat. I do have a camera on a bed as we speak. Time will only tell if a buck uses the bed this year.

I can get close enough to a bedding area to see buck movement though. This is where I set the majority of my cameras up. This is my question if only a hand full of Beast guys can get close enough to see the buck in it's bed how do we gather enough solid data to prove out your theory? I have little or no confidence in studies done by test tube white coats, that have never stepped in deer crap.

I'm a tough sell, being naive isn't my strong suit. I do believe that you believe. How did your search go on the good moon evening?

[TNstalker]

I think you have to use an expensive drone or high end thermal imager. Plus cameras collars an other tools in that study to try a capture all the data we want as hunters.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[headgear]

I understand where you think the moon might effect buck movement. It may very well happen, I just cant prove it out. Here is why; there aren't enough hunters to gather data from that get close enough to see the buck in it's bed. In my poll of Beast members, 90 percent saw only 2 or less bucks in beds on their hunts in a season. 63 % of Beast hunters never see bucks in their beds when hunting during a season.

This is why you would need GPS collars on bucks, as Lu Rome said even half hour increment tracking might not be enough. Seeing bucks in their beds is cool but not really a practical way to measure anything, in a lot of cases they are bedded in very thick areas so seeing them is near impossible until they start moving.

I'm a tough sell, being naive isn't my strong suit. I do believe that you believe. How did your search go on the good moon evening?

Just from my past observations the moon rise/set last night had no effect. I think I may have misinterpreted the data in the study that suggested moon rise/set had a stronger effect but we were clearly looking at different things. Had an overhead or underfoot moon been in prime time I would have likely seen far more deer activity. I am still going to monitor both for a while to make sure. We just had a new moon, according to Drury in this article the moon rise/set he follows is only around a full moon so I will have to look into that a bit further. Again I have only watch oh/uf times in the past so this stuff is all new to me.
http://wiredtohunt.com/2015/07/08/how-m ... -movement/

[headgear]

Giving this one a bump, Thursday the 8th and Friday the 9th should been quality moon evenings for scouting, the moon will be overhead within the last 1.5 hours of shooting light on both nights.

[Stanley]

Giving this one a bump, Thursday the 8th and Friday the 9th should been quality moon evenings for scouting, the moon will be overhead within the last 1.5 hours of shooting light on both nights.

I'm interested in seeing how this shakes out.

[Dewey]

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[headgear]

I'm interested in seeing how this shakes out.

These should be pretty rock solid, standard overhead moon that has been extremely consistent for me in the past. Not 100% by any means but I always seen more deer and more early movement.

[headgear]

Saw some pretty good early movement last night, nothing amazing but more deer on their feet earlier than the previous week when I was checking the moonset times. Tonight might be even better because the peak overhead time is closer to sunset.

Just now I was dropping one kid off at daycare and sure enough the deer were out moving and feeding, checked the moon and sure enough it was underfoot at 7:08am in my area. It just all adds up to the moon influence to me, my best advice is make your own observations. The best movement seems to be within a half hour on either side of the peak overhead/underfoot times.

[perchsoup]

Last Friday at 2 PM I was driving some rural country roads. Saw two different bucks feeding in two different fields and a doe and two fawns under an old apple tree. Also saw a flock of turkeys cross the road. Got home, check the solunar table, moon was overhead.

[Hawthorne]

The deer were really out yesterday evening with moon overhead. Saw a nice bachelor group at a waterhole well before dark. Got to watch from a distance

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[boldlygo]

Now, if I were making an earnest attempt at having relations with my girl, I'd be sure to do everything I could think of to increase my odds. However, as I'm an articulate, well-hung athlete consistently providing her with satisfying experiences, the basics are covered. I don't need to be told to get in shape, address my personal hygiene, or to make her laugh. Showing appreciation for her insights is obvious, and I'd be ludicrous to ignore opportunities to make her day easier (thereby smoothing the rough, cobbled path to the bedroom).

But! It's about the numbers. Percents, fractions, ratios... The odds! Yes, I do like to keep the odds in my favor. That's why I'm excited about the study Joe introduced on this thread and the input of Dan's field observations as well as what he's witnessed on Andre's trail cameras (caught that comment during Dan's interview on the Whitetail Watch podcast).

If you're a hunter who doesn't believe in the moon, this is not the thread for you. Despite claiming the contrary, I wonder if you truly know how to enter your stand quietly, observe the wind, and watch for when the mercury plummets... We're on the Hunting Beast after all, not some nanny forum full of suburbanites who just bought their first crossbow hoping to save grandma's petunia patch. Wisconsin's long history of cheese production needs no contribution of a "Lunar Swiss," so go poke holes on some other thread in some other forum. Despite being "Beasts," some of us here cannot hunt every single hour of daylight for ~75 days straight. As such, we are all about increasing our odds.

Interpreting lunar information has been challenging for me, piecing together random quotes from Dan, google searches, and now most recently the study Joe has procured for the community. Thank you Joe! I have a bachelor's degree in environmental biology, but I can't claim my skills at quantitative analysis have remained ironclad. With contributions on this thread combined with other sources previously mentioned, I feel reasonably confident I can add this new knowledge to my toolbelt. Which is great, because the moon is actually all you* need!!

Using a solarlunar chart like http://www.solunarforecast.com/solunarcalendar.aspx, I can identify sunrise and sunset times for any given day. I can also distinguish when the moon is overhead, underfoot, as well as when it's rising and setting. With this information (being the erudite lunar hunter I now am) it is possible for me to record specific times when deer activity may be heightened. However, note that I said "specific times." I did not say "moon day," "bad moon day," etc. ~waving my rain stick emphatically~ That is not what the data described! This thread has cooperatively come to the conclusion that on days the moon is overhead or underfoot during peak shooting time (dawn/dusk), and it is not full or new, deer will be more active. Okay! But let us communicate with specificity. "During peak shooting hours, if the moon is not full or new, and it is overhead or underfoot, deer will be more active." That brings us to the next conclusion we drew, which was "During peak shooting hours, if the moon is full or new, and it is rising or setting, deer will be more active." Wow!!

Sometimes during the season I wonder what hunt I'll attempt the following day. If I'm tired, probably not a morning hunt. If the girl needs attention, probably not an evening hunt. But while pondering, it is nice to take all the possible variables into account. Perhaps I'm considering a morning hunt, and see that on November 18th these prime shooting hours align with one of our new lunar conclusions. Huzzah! I'll be sure* to stomp noisily through the woods without bothering to check the wind or temperatures. Or I'm wondering if an evening hunt makes sense on November 29th because I'm in a real jam at the office and conditions aren't really that great. A quick reference to the calendar and comparison to our conclusions reveals that possible positive factor is definitely out of the equation. Darn it!! The camel's back has been broken, so I head to the office in resignation. But, it's also with the relief that I've examined every possible influence at my disposal before finally making the call.


Thank you to the Beast community members who have positively contributed to the information session in this thread. Please keep it coming! I too have seen some elevated deer activity recently (though contribute it a bit more to the changing photoperiod). Hopefully we can all weigh in after a few months with our seasons' results! Perhaps we could entitle the topic "Moon Deer Slayed," or something equally as impressive.



*please go up and re-read the third paragraph. Then read it again.