First of all understand that I've been hunting deer since 1964, guiding since 1989, and doing deer research since 1999 (for 10 years). One of the things I looked at was if deer lwere affected by the daily position of the moon. I als0 looked at was how they were affected by any weather condition I could think of, if the rut was affected by the moon, and if monthly activity was affected by moonlight, gravitaion or electomagnetics.

The RUT was not correlated with the FULL MOON, moonlight affects deer on a daily bais, depending on how much light there is; moonlight and/or gravitational pull affect deer weekly (not daily) deer activity is afected based on the phase and closenes of the moon to earth, electromagnetics affected deer on a weekly basis each month.

There really is a lot that afects deer, but the average hunter should pay most attention to the weather. Her is an axion I coined back in th ealry 1990's

T.R.'s Game Animal Actvity Axiom:
If it is too hot, too cold, too wind or too wet, or there is too much human beavior or predatory behavior - the animals are not going to do what they normaly d. That, if you think about it, is just common sense.

On our farm I had deer bedding in the backyard. They bedded nightly in a line of pine trees, about 50 yards form the highway, and the same from the house, where they would have been visible from the highway if a person had cared to look. I used to watch them from the downstairs bathroom window every morning, 7 does and fawns. I used to say that I did deer research while sitting on the throne reading the paper.

One doe bedded at the base of a big willow tree in the creek bottom behind the house, in a line from the kithchen window to the old pump for the barn. She would raise her head and look while my wife went out the back door to go to the garage 40 yards away, to start the car and bring it to the back door, and she would go back to sleep as soon as the wife left the place.

And I can tell you that after watching the deer in our yard for several weeks, and checking the Feeding and Fishing Times, Moon Guide, Solunar Table and a few other deer movement predictors, that they did not get up, nor were they active, at times predicted by any of those tables more than 11% of the time. So, THE POSITION OF THE MOON HAS NO EFFECT ON DEER ACTIVITY TIMES.

I extended that moon position study to another 6 years, on all of the deer within 5 miles of our house, and still never saw any correlation with deer activity times, feeding times, bedding times, and the position of the moon, which is to say that MOON PREDICTORS FOR DEER ACTIVITY DO NOT WORK on a regular basis. Sure they might work for a few deer, a few times a week, but day in and day out, over a month - they will not work.


If you have questions about deer biology and behavior, or deer hunhting - feel free to ask. I'm here to help. Ask here or e-mail me at [email protected]

God bless,

T.R.