We just witnessed the full moon in October. Folks call it the Hunter’s Moon. Folks also kind of get mixed up as to why. I want to discuss the moon’s influences on deer hunting and maybe shed some light on why we associate the moon so closely with hunting.

Let me begin by stating that I never have nor will advocate staying on the couch due to the phase of the moon. Every time this topic gets brought up, somebody pipes up with “There’s no way you’re going to keep me out of the woods no matter what the Moon’s doing!” I agree. I consulted my log of deer kills; I can report that over the past 20 years we have taken deer on every day of the Lunar cycle– just some more than others. We will get to that presently.

So why is it called “The Hunter’s Moon?”  The answer I have is that having a Full Moon allowed hunters to continue hunting at night.  The September Moon is “The Harvest Moon.”  The light helped guys work bringing in the crops.  The October Moon pulls similar service.  It’s just that simple.

So why do they call the November Moon “The “Beaver Moon?”  I always found the girls in the dorm to be more pliable after mid-term exams. Maybe that has something to do with it.  I did find this article:

Here’s Why People Keep Calling The November Full Moon By Different Names

If the link doesn’t work, I’ll keep a PDF of it here:

What Is The November Full Moon Called It Goes By Many Names

The other thing I hear about the Full Moon is the idea that you’re supposed to hunt all day. Another gem I’ve seen recently is that deer are going to move at the rising and setting of the Moon, no matter what phase.  Let me cover these ideas first.

When I most recently encountered these ideas, I decided to go back and test them. I’ve got over 20 years of data in the camp’s  log.  I track the moon phase.  In fact I have the age of the moon down to 2 decimal places.  The results did not jive with either premise.

In regards to more midday kills of bucks, my data is not so good.  None of us at camp do all-day sits. I did it a few times years ago, but I never got anything besides a numb rump.  Nowadays, we all come in for a meal and a short nap before going back out in the afternoon.  We do have an elevated number of kills during the Full Moon, but I will cover that later.

How about that Rise/Set thing?  If you go to https://www.mooncalc.org, you’ll find a tool that lets you calculate moonrise and moonset for a given location and date. The final result was   totally random. If you take the interval between our kills and the nearest rise/set event, the answer ends up being a minimum of 12 minutes to a maximum of 8+hours with no pattern discernable. I figured that if there was some sort of correlation, I’d see it with values group less than 2 hours. The average interval turned out to be 3:06. I was calculating using Excel, which works in decimal parts of a day. I considered .01 day to be the minimum threshold for scoring a hit. That only happened 44% of the time (slightly less than random).

I ran into something similar when I did a review of a Casio Hunter watch over a decade ago. The watch gave peak hunting times– up to 4 per day. It went vaguely off Lunar events (rise,set,zenith,nadir) with some sort of magic fudge factor offset. What I finally figured out after carefully reading the instructions is the watch’s purported accuracy on this was give or take 3 hours. (Funny, didn’t I just calculate a 3-hour average interval?). I kept the watch, because it was pretty accurate on sunrise/set.  See:  The Magic Watch  

That watch is still working and still on my wrist during season. I just do not take its predictions seriously.

All right.  Everyone knows the Moon does something to the deer, right?  What is it?  Let me show you the data.  First off, here is a chart I made a while back from the deer log. 

As you can see,  We have far more deer during the 1st and 2nd quarters of the moon.  If you are still trying to match this to the Rise/Set times, a New Moon rises and sets with the Sun.  A Full Moon rises and sets opposite the Sun. 

Okay.  Let’s zero in on this further. What days of the Lunar Month produce the most deer kills at our camp?

Yes, there is an increase in deer kills between the 11th and the 16th (Full Moon is the 14th Day) .  However, look at the 3rd Day.  Yikes!  I know that is just an anomaly.  In fact, I went back and looked into it.  The reason why it is so high is that SuperCore has shot all his Two-Fers on coincidentally the same day  of the Lunar month.  We’ve also had a few times over the years where we have had 3 deer taken in 2 days by different team members on that day. The imporant thing is to recognize that our camp’s log supports the Full Moon Hypothesis, but it is not a dramatic jump. There is nothing here to suggest that anyone stay home on the couch on any particular day of the lunar cycle. There is also no big bump on the Full Moon that says you have to be in the woods.

So how is this going to stack relate to current events?  The KY Rifle Opener is on  13 November this year.  Here is a plot of the lunar activity for the month:

The New Moon is on 11/4. The Full Moon is on 11/19

The Rifle Opener is on 11/13. The Official Shamanic Lunar Deer Prediction is that this year will be good.  Perhaps it won’t be great, but we’ll walk away without feeling cheated.  Similar years have been 2005 and 2010.  If those years were good for you, then expect more of the same.

Understand that the years with Rifle Season Openers on the 8th thru the 11th have the hottest action. However, there is usually plenty of action whenever the season starts.  I expect the latter part of the season to have lighter activity this year, but still no reason to stay home after Thanksgiving.

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