If anyone is like me, I always study the moon phases for the upcoming season and base that around when I'll spend most of my time in the treestand. The term double digits is always key when it comes to november. The second full moon after the fall equinox happens to land on november 11th this year (veterans day) and with a 3-4 day window on either side of it will be a hot time to be in your setup! I have harvested most of my bucks in october, but have seen my biggest on or near the 11th through the 17th, one of my pope and youngs on the 11th. I know other things are factored, hunting pressure in your area, weather, etc. As of right now this time frame is looking pretty good and I know for a fact their will be some hammers dropped on the ground. There are alot of sites which offer free information about the moon phases and how solunar and lunar are different and when the moon and sun coincide high in the sky at the same time. I have been in the woods when this has happened and it's like someone turned on the switch and deer are running all over the place. Just google moon phases and hunting. Good luck and happy hunting!
Thanks a lot on the info. I try to be out in the stand as much as I can but knowing this I will def have something to look forward to when that time ones. Thanks again and good luck
Great post! Only last year did I start paying attention to the moon phases, and I am a firm believer in this "theory". To some, it is just that, a theory. But, there is a science to everything!
Not until this coming Saturday brotha! ;-) As for the moon phase this coming weekend should see a lot of movement. I am also going with November 3rd through the 6th. This just my observation over the years and this exact setup was at the end of October last year and a lot of folks put deer down. http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon
No doubt Tony there are many opportunities to be in the woods, I too like halloween weekend. I think we should hunt in a halloween mask, haha... Don't get me wrong I hunt really hard from the few days before halloween through veterans day weekend. Just everything is lined up nice for around veterans day week! T he last 2 seasons I have taken my bucks on october 23rd in 2009 and on oct. 1st in 2010.
I too follow the moon and schedule my time off work according to it when im limited on time. I too off duty from Nov. 5-16.... outta be able to see some good movement in the few states I hunt & hopefully have something down by then!
Ya know... It's interesting... If I graphed out all of the bucks that I've killed with my bow, there would be really no clustering or bell-curve. I've filled as many buck tags in the first week of October as I have in the first week of November, and every week in between. That said, I've conducted numerous polls on this site where people selected their last buck harvest date - and the results were a large bell-curve around the 7th of November. Obviously, big bucks travel to breed - that goes without saying. But it also should be noted that the spike in harvests also overlays the two most popular weeks for guys to burn their vacation time. It would only stand to reason that most guys would stand their best chance at tagging out when they're spending an entire week in a tree. To put it another way, a spike in hunter activity will always result in a spike in deer mortality. My deer harvests are equally dispersed throughout the season - largely in part to the fact that I never take any time off to hunt. Just the weekends and a few single days here and there, when work permits. I've never taken a true "hunting vacation." I hunt just as much during the rut as I do during weeks 1, 2, 3 . . . Rut hunting is a funny thing. You tend to see more deer because the foliage is off and the bucks are traveling. On the other hand, many shot opportunities never develop because the targets won't stand still long enough to shoot at them. A spike in hunting pressure also artificially manipulates their movement. I guess I've spent enough time in the tree to appreciate the spike in activity during the chase phase (and my hunting logs do bear that out, to some degree), but at the end of the day, that really hasn't (for me at least) translated into a palpable spike in dead bucks or shot opportunities. If I break down my statistics, I stand just as much chance scoring a buck in the first week of the season as I do in the peak of the chase phase. Maybe that has something to do with the way that I hunt. Maybe I'm a statistical aberration, but that's the honest to god's truth. _____________ I got off-topic there. As far as the true moon phases go, I've had my best luck hunting the moon overhead and moon underfoot times for each day. In fact, I've filled at least a few buck tags this way. These are deer that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. But when I really look at the numbers, it can be misleading. Let me explain. In 2004, I believe, I was hunting the moon overhead/underfoot times whenever possible. It was mid-October, and the solunar charts had me sitting in my stand on a Thursday afternoon at 4:00. Normally, I wouldn't have climbed until 5:00. The big buck showed up at 4:15, and the rest was history. Was it the gravitational effect of the moon causing this buck to move? OR, did I just kill him because I was driving myself to spend more time in the stands to hit the overhead/underfoot "peak" times. My logs really didn't show any spike in deer activity during those times, but alternatively, I was subconsciously pushing myself to stretch my hunts out by 1-2 hours on a regular basis, directly resulting in me seeing more deer. One of those deer ended up on my wall. Hunting bucks is a numbers game, especially if you're hunting multiple properties and skipping around from area to area. Only 1 in X number of bucks is a shooter, so you need to put yourself in a position to see as many bucks as possible in order to ramp up your odds of getting the opportunity to unleash an arrow. If hunting the moon phases causes you to spend more time on the stand, thus, seeing more deer, what have you got to lose?
I'm also a moon phase watcher, I first started paying attention through planning musky fishing trips. Then I started using it in my bow hunting planning. But I love being in the woods a much as I can nomatter the moon phase.
I honestly feel that the first week is at least equal to the rut when it comes to an opportunity to tag one. Early season = Predictable + Element of Surprise Rut = Unpredictable + A Pressured Buck ( but a lot of his attention is on does, fool the doe, fool the buck)
I actually just read an article on Solunar theory. It was started with research in fish. Many people thought the tides had something to do with fish activity so John Alden Knight looked at 33 different factors. Of which he found the most important to be sun tide and moon. we all know that tides are effected by the moon and there are seemingly no tides in a river so he threw that one out. Next he studied fish activity and noted moon and sun position. After developing his theory on fish he looked at game birds and other animals, the theory still held true. Another man used oysters that were placed in complete darkness. after a week of opening with the tides from their home they opened when the moon was overhead and underfoot. Here is a link to the article Take what you want from this post, but i have compared times and days of when i have deer on trail cam with the charts and found most of the pictures are during either the major or minor periods for this Solunar theory. I am not sure how or why it works but having done a little research on my own i believe it and on days where sitting in a stand during one of these times is practical i will be in my stand (along with any other time i can get in). Not sure if you can find the charts free online any where but i challenge you to look at the times your big guys are showing up on trail cam and see if it coincides with any of these times. Just maybe it will help you pattern him just that much more.
