Call me an interested observer on this hunting subject. Like other hunters, I’ve seen too much anecdotal evidence to write it off completely. Some big time hunters who kill big time bucks swear by it. At the same time, I’ve seen the numbers behind this theory enough to know I shouldn’t base my entire strategy around it. I just can’t get around the fact that I’ve seen my two best rut hunting days ever when it occurred. During the first one, I saw 9 different bucks within the span of a morning. When I killed my best buck to date, I watched a lunar eclipse through the windshield of my truck on the way to my spot.
For those unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, the moon phase has been a topic of some notoriety in the hunting community. Honestly, I get the sense that it compares to the rise of popularity that seems to be appearing with horoscope believers. There are a few die-hard believers because people forget that correlation does not mean causation, and most folks are healthy skeptics. But even the healthy skeptics take pause when they get into a fender-bender and Mars happened to be upside down that day or however horoscopes work. Hunting by the moon phase seems to have a similar connotation. Some folks have gone so far as to create lunar calendars and apps that will predict the days with the best buck movement due to the moon.
There isn’t one single uniform theory about how exactly the moon impacts deer movement. Some look for a red moon, which apparently means the moon is closest to earth and thus its gravitational pull is at its highest. Some look for when the moon is directly overhead at night and directly underfoot during the day. Some simply say that it means that more light is available to deer during the evening so they stay out longer in the fields to eat, which means they get back to their beds later in the morning. Some say that the first full moon or the harvest moon kicks off the rut.
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Again, it’s not that I dismiss the lunar impact to deer, I just haven’t seen true causation effect. There are plenty of other explanations for increased deer movement during any of these times. Correlation does not mean causation. What I mean by this is that just because activity A happens first and then activity B happens second, it does not necessarily mean that A caused B. Yesterday, for example, my daughter and I read a certain book before nap time, only she did not take a nap after we read it. Correlation would tell me to throw out the book; we read it and then she didn’t nap, so therefore the book must have caused her not to nap. Anyone who has ever raised a toddler knows that they don’t need ‘reasons’.
Hunters can act the same way, especially when it comes to anything that gives us a slightly better advantage. Could it just be coincidence that I saw the lunar eclipse the morning I shot my buck? Absolutely. Could it be just the fact that I could see the eclipse on a cloudless night, meaning the barometric pressure was rising, another indicator of increased daylight buck movement? Or perhaps the fact that it was November 8, one of the better days of the rut? Could it be that the law of averages says that I will see bucks on the day of a full moon?
I’ve also heard all of the scientists and deer biologists opine on this subject, and it is always a categorical ‘no’ from them. The moon has no impact, according to them. But if there’s anything we’ve learned from the last few years, it’s how scientific data can be construed to fit one’s message. Lies, damned lies, and statistics, as the saying goes. I’m not saying these deer biologists have some grand unified conspiracy to keep the moon out of deer hunting, I’m just saying the data they use in general doesn’t necessarily address the topic at hand.
The number one response I always hear from scientists on this subject is that ‘the moon has no clear effect on buck movement’. Problem is, that’s not the question. It’s about daylight travel. When I’ve actually dug into the data, I usually find them looking at overall movement not increasing. That’s fine, but what if the moon phase caused a buck to get out of his bed 30 minutes earlier than normal without actually increasing activity? That makes a huge difference.
Or maybe they don’t travel more during the day, but they travel further? Deer do not just lay down in a bed from dawn until dusk like you might think humans do during the reverse time. They get up, browse, defecate, they just usually do it in circles in a small area. What if I were to stretch those circles out into a straight line that happened to lead past one of my stands? No data on that subject.
This is just one example of a growing trend I see with ‘data’ and people’s reactions to it. For example, I saw a graphic the other day from a well-known deer research institution about the amount of times bucks hit a scrape by age class. It showed that year-olds hit it some, 2.5 year-olds hit it the most, 3.5 year olds less, and 4.5+ year olds hardly at all. You know the problem with that data? It doesn’t tell me anything because that’s also probably the age class disbursement in general of bucks in that area! Now, to this institution’s credit, they put a disclaimer on this subject at the very end of their post. But how many people cruised right by that? And if they were studying that subject, why didn’t they overlay that data compared to the age makeup of that area’s deer population?
This is why this subject is somewhat intriguing to me…I know the moon isn’t a primary driver of deer activity, but…I haven’t seen enough to tell me to completely ignore it either. I think a lot of hunters are in that camp. Because I can’t completely rule it out, I kind of keep half of a sideways eye on it when I’m planning to hunt. Not to make decisions, mind you, but just to see what happens. I know what I’m being told, but to quote a line from Shooter, they also told me artificial sweeteners were safe, WMDs were in Iraq, and Anna Nicole married for love.