RE: Hunting in the rain?
Here' s my $.02 on both.
Rain: Agree with the others about hunting in the rain - yes, deer do move in the rain, but if you shoot them, now what without good blood because of washout, especially at night? Deer as we all know at times, are unpredictable. Yes, most of the time they won' t move much in heavy rain although, I' ve disproved that theory many times. The other day for example I went out at 10a to rebait the pile (I slept in and skipped the morning hunt because it was raining). It was raining so hard you couldn' t see 80 yards. (It was the only time I could get bait on the pile for the next few days so I had no choice but to suit up and go at it in the rain.) When I reached my pile, there were four deer feeding on it - all does, but still, live deer. The best time to hunt a storm of any kind - prior and right after, especially prior if you can pull it off. Deer have built in storm weather tracking gear and will go on a feeding nut prior to a storm (and the ones that were too busy goofing off not watching the weather channel feed in the rain apparently).
Moon: My experience leads me to believe that deer move later in the evening even when there is full cloud cover with a full moon. In MI, it' s going to be clear and full moon this weekend - that sucks.