coues4u Report post Posted December 9, 2009 Do you think that the moon phases are directly related to what times animals come to water??? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
coues4u Report post Posted December 9, 2009 Ok 64 views and no replies??? I guess there's not many people that are knowledgable about how the moon phases affect animals. Guess I'll just google it and find out what I can thanx Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
willhunt4coues Report post Posted December 9, 2009 They are always more active when the moon is out but I don't know about water depends on how much it has rained how much water is in the area and when the last time they watered. It is going to be hard to find this out because they get lots of water just from what they eat. Sorry I couldn't help you out any more. Good luck on your quest and welcome to the site. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HEADACHE Report post Posted December 10, 2009 they are out more at night and up less during the day when there is more moon out. . . . that being said I don't know how much it directly relates to water. there are some moon phase guru's that eat sleep and breathe white-tail hunting . . but those guys are all back east. Some of them have made a downright science out of it! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DubTee Report post Posted December 10, 2009 The theory is that animals tend to be moving out and about more when the moon is directly over head. So coincide that with moon times, new=noonish, full=midnightish, 1st quarter=evening, last quarter=morning. You can get into it further by the theory that when the moon is rising, animals are on their way to feeding, when the moon is falling, animals are moving back to bedding areas. I am one of those transplanted easterners who pay attention to the moon, imo, the theories seem to coincide with my observations. Like others have said, how this affects their watering times, I do not know. Obviously there are several other factors that can influence an animal to move, rut, weather, hunting pressure, etc., I think the moon is just one of those factors, not the deciding factor. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Benbrown Report post Posted December 12, 2009 A lot of whitetail research has shown that deer equate darkness with cover and move farther into open areas during the dark of the moon. Conversely, on moonlit nights they do not move far (if at all) from bedding and escape cover. This is why a lot of old-timers will tell you that you won't see deer out feeding in the morning after a full moon because they have been out feeding all night. Actually, they have been hanging back in cover and doing whatever feeding they have done there. On dark nights, they range farther out in the open and frequently can be seen moving back to daytime bedding areas well after first light. That said, deer usually go to water (when it's available) after ruminating. They will water in the early evening after leaving afternoon bedding areas. After feeding in the evening and early part of the night, they will lay down and ruminate some more (we used to refer this as the "coffee break", as almost every deer with a radio collar would become inactive and remain that way until the middle of the night). They get up and become active again for a few hours and then bed or loaf again. Some will go to water again at this time if it is close by. Shortly before daylight, they will get up and feed intensively before going to their morning bedding sites. They will typically water again at mid-day as they move from their morning bedding areas to their afternoon bedding areas. Although I have never radio tracked Coues whitetails, my observations of undisturbed Coues deer suggest that this general routine is pretty much the same for our little deer that inhabit the sky island mountain ranges out here. Over the years, I have put a few game cameras at isolated water sources and the times that deer have watered at these places are pretty much in line with the timeline outlined above. Obviously, human activity, especially a lot of hunting pressure, will cause deer to alter this routine. YMMV Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TAM Report post Posted December 12, 2009 I had the opportunity to help out on one of the coues deer hunts for a week right after Thanksgiving. My Garmin GPS has a a moon table built in which lists the "best" and "worst" times to hunt. I've never paid much attention to these time tables until this hunt. I have to say that from my observations they were right on. I believe the tables are based on what DubTee outlined above. I did notice that high winds and heavy rain would tend to reduce the effectiveness of the tables, and cool temps and overcast skys seemed to increase the effictiveness, but overall we saw more deer up and moving during these times. For what it's worth numerous deer were glassed up in their beds. I do not consider a bedded deer an "active" deer. These lunar tables are predicting times of high and low deer activity, and in most cases the times we saw bedded deer were times that were being predicted for low deer activity. It was really weird how close the tables matched our observations. It will be interesting to see how close they match up with deer activity and perhaps pre-rut activity during my hunt in Mexico next week. All of this was based off of one weeks observations, so an expert I am not! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AZantlerhead Report post Posted December 12, 2009 The theory is that animals tend to be moving out and about more when the moon is directly over head. So coincide that with moon times, new=noonish, full=midnightish, 1st quarter=evening, last quarter=morning. You can get into it further by the theory that when the moon is rising, animals are on their way to feeding, when the moon is falling, animals are moving back to bedding areas. I am one of those transplanted easterners who pay attention to the moon, imo, the theories seem to coincide with my observations. Like others have said, how this affects their watering times, I do not know. Obviously there are several other factors that can influence an animal to move, rut, weather, hunting pressure, etc., I think the moon is just one of those factors, not the deciding factor. +1, Spot on. There is allways a current moon phase calendar on the fridge door of our camper dureing our hunts. It's published regularly in North American Hunter mag. and lists the best times for game movement, according to their biologists. We take stock in it, but don't rely on it. It's fun to compare the calendar and game sightings each day and what they were doing.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest borderboy Report post Posted December 12, 2009 Do you think that the moon phases are directly related to what times animals come to water??? Yes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
