I keep seeing people say "Studies have shown that lunar phases do not affect deer movement." However, I've never seen a good breakdown of what they're studying and how they're measuring it. For instance, one of the articles I've read came from Penn State. They said the effect of lunar phase was insignificant. They only moved 20' further on a new moon night and 13' further on days of a partial moon than on a full moon. However, they said the deer were more active at dusk than dawn during the full moon. It seems like they completely overlooked the fact that people would be more likely to see deer that were more active at dusk than dawn, since you'd be less likely to bump deer. When they move is far more important than how much they move.

I would also like to see a study that covered the position of the moon instead of the phases and how that affects movement. The total amount of movement doesn't matter. I'm more interested in when they move.

Overall, it seems like there hasn't been much effort put into this. Telling me it has no effect means nothing if you don't tell me what you're studying and how you're measuring it.

IMO, and I have no evidence other than anecdotal to back this up, the weather has many times more to do with local deer movement than moon movement.

I tracked local deer movement and moon phase for several years.  Compiled the information, and saw no significant correlation to deer movement and the moon.  Direct correlation to deer movement immediately after significant storms moved through and during significant cold fronts .  This includes information from several farmers in the area who were working through the storms while I wasn't in the stand.  Obviously none of this was scientific.

However, I spend a lot less time in the stand now because I only hunt what I consider to be high value hunting days, and the amount of deer I see per hour in the stand is way up in the last few years.  I also tend to see more quality bucks than I used to.  This may also be because the deer heard itself is up...who knows...

All I can do is try to apply my experience and have confidence in that experience.  Confidence that you'll see a deer in the stand means you'll stay there longer and have much higher odds of seeing one.

Did you watch moon phase or moon position?

I think weather definitely affects deer movement, but not as much down south as it does up north. I can say the 5 days of rain we had in November last year pretty much shut it down. I always thought deer moved more in the rain, but not where I was at last year. It was obvious. I was seeing 0-2 deer per day off of a stand where I normally see 8+. I've seen over 30 in that stand in one day. For 5 days, it was dead. As soon as the rain stopped, the deer showed up.

It's just funny to see how many people are staunch believers in the studies that say the moon doesn't affect deer movement that can't tell you anything except the headline from the article they saw.

I once tried overlaying some solunar data over my log books to see if there really was any correlation...
My results? Nope... no real correlation at all.
Weather was the biggest influencer in movement, especially in the late fall and winter.
Nothing beats a good snowstorm coming in to get them moving around with reckless abandon.
Only downside is getting stuck at camp a few extra days waiting for the roads to reopen...

It would be nice if we got snow during deer season. I've never hunted in snow in my life. We'll usually have a cold snap or two where it gets into the low 20's or maybe a little cooler but that's it. I don't think I've ever killed a deer on our really cold days.

Some of my best hunts have been on snow-covered, 15-20F days when another big snow is about to move in.  I'm convinced the deer feel the barometer falling and start to move and feed heavy in preparation for hunkering down a day or two.
Doesn't happen as often as it used to.  Our rifle season used to be buck only for the 2 weeks after Thanksgiving, followed by a 3 day doe season the 3rd Monday-Wednesday after turkey day... It was about 50/50 odds on having some snow cover where I hunt during buck, and about 80% likely during doe.
These days, the season runs the two weeks after thanksgiving, in my area 1st week is buck only, then buck and doe the 2nd (Saturday to Saturday, no Sunday hunting).
I go up and hunt the combined part for 3-4 days... It's usually highs in the lower 30's, and I'd say snow cover odds are still around 50%, but we seem to get just as many seasons now where the highs are 50 as we do 20...
Last season was ok, had snow on the ground to start, about 6", but it was gone by the 3rd day due to mid-40's and occasional rain. Still managed to fill 3 tags, so no complaints.

It's usually in the 90's when bow season starts in September here. Our season ends the middle of January. January is supposedly our coldest month, but it doesn't seem that way.

Weather is #1, but all things being equal, this thing will tell you where to be and when.
We've showed it to be more than hocus pocos plenty of times in the last 20 years.

I know where they usually bed, so if I've ever spooked a deer walking in, chances are I can look at the chart and it will show them being active on food just before daylight.
Should have been there an hour earlier.



ETA: Now during height of the rut, anything predictive goes right out the window
My 2 biggest deer left no big buck sign where I took them, they were following the does.

Personally, I don't think even snow makes them move more here in MO.

I think it just makes it easier to see how much they move normally.

I've been really considering ordering one of those. I've been keeping notes on when the mature bucks (3.5+) show up on camera during the day the last 2 weeks. Every daylight pic of a 3.5+ year old buck except one has been inside of the Major AM activity period according to the solunar section on the HuntStand app and on a N, NE, or NW wind. The only pic that was outside of that period was an hour early on his way to a feeder. He showed up at the feeder during that Major AM period.

Our flintlock season runs after Christmas through to almost the end of January...
That's when the real cold usually hits.

Our Archery season opens up in September, but doesn't run all the way through.. lots of gaps in our seasons. Last year I swear it rained damn near EVERY day of archery... a lot.

Charles Alsheimer (sorry about possible spelling errors) did a lot of studies based on moon phase, thing he wrote a book on it.

I believe in moon theory, but there's some caveats to understand why on one hand it may be valid but on the other hand studies don't back it up.

1. It may only reliably apply to Florida deer.

Florida hunters invented moon theory and that's where others who have published books about it got the idea. Florida used to have an extensive industry based on the export of our whitetail hides that ran all the way back to the time of the Spanish and didn't really die out until the early 1900s. Our whitetails have more supple hides than whitetails from other places in North America due to the subtropic and tropic environments of Florida. The professional hide hunters of Florida devised moon theory as a way of reliably predicting deer movement periods so as to make deer harvest on a commercial scale more efficient. You can read the works of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to see examples of where fictional native Floridians hunted and fish by the moon position such as The Yearling and South Moon Under (the title of which is a direct reference to the notion that when the moon is directly underneath, deer move hard). Rawlings was not a native Floridian but she adapted Cracker culture quickly and she researched her books with locals that knew their stuff.

Florida is different than the rest of the US and the animals are also different, especially on the peninsula (the panhandle of Florida is more like the rest of the SE). Deer in Florida can rut year-round, with the peak rut times varying across the peninsula. In the Everglades, the peak rut is in July (right now). Florida whitetails otherwise act different in many other ways. Across much of the peninsula a mature buck tops out at 120lbs live weight and does top out at 70-80 pounds. Florida whitetails probably ought to be classified as a very distinct subspecies from other whitetails.

Regardless, what's true of Florida whitetails may not be true of whitetails in other places. Here the seasons are pretty much either hot or cool and wet or dry, Spring and Fall doesn't mean much. It could be that where the line between the seasons is more blurred, other factors have to mark times of animal activity such as the moon.

2. My own experience is that the barometer is the biggest factor in deer movement. Above a certain point they move hard. Below a certain point movement grinds to a halt. As measured by my own trail camera collection fed into local weather stations that matched weather conditions and moon phase to pictures. When the barometer is right, then the moon seems more important to their movements. When the barometer is wrong, they won't move no matter what the moon would otherwise predict.

3. Different populations move on different moon phases.

I spent a year matching deer movements to moon phase between a heavily pressured herd on private land in the Florida panhandle and a heavily pressured herd on public land in the north-center of the peninsula. Both groups moved very strongly on a particular phase of the moon, but that phase was different depending on the location. One group preferred three or four days after the first quarter, the second group preferred 3 or 4 days after the third quarter. The preference was obvious and not insignificant. 500% or more movement on those days. The graphs looked like a jagged mountain. Neither group preferred to move on the full moon and movement would plummet on the actual day of the full moon. Both had a day in the cycle where virtually no movement happened. I called that day the deer sabbath. It was a different day for each group.

4. There's a difference between moon phase and moon position and between daytime and nighttime activity.

In my personal study, moon phase seemed to be important for overall deer movement, and moon position seemed to correlate more with daytime mature buck activity. Back about 4 years ago I mapped 100% daytime trail camera activity on scrapes (what we call "pawings" in Florida) of large mature bucks to be within 30 minutes without exception of the moon rising, setting, being at its zenith, or being underneath. The next year I used that data and killed my last mature buck on a scrape down to the minutes that the quarter moon was on its zenith and it turned out to be one of the bucks I had mapped out the year before.

That last paragraph is probably buck hunting solid gold that I ought not give out. But I did, so there.

So I think moon theory has nuances that blunt studies may not catch.

There may be something to the Florida thing.

Since I posted this I found out that MSU had a study that showed a link between the moon and deer movement. The thing was, the moon affected movement unless it didn’t. They found that pressure (human and other predator) can negate the moon’s influence. If that’s the case, then other factors could negate it too.

My experience is that the moon is light.  The deer seem to run all night long and hunker down in the daylight (probably because of hunting pressure) I think they just adapt to avoid humans.

Been hunting deer for almost 30 years.  Been in the woods observing them year round, more hours than I ever should have spent out there.  Spent a ton of time taking in all the research about moon phases, weather patterns, sensitivity to human traffic, food sources, air pressure changes, all of it. And I'm sure there IS some science to it.

But the one rule I've learned is this.  The best way to be successful is to be where the deer want to be when they decide to be there.  All the science in the world doesn't mean anything if the conditions are perfect and the deer are somewhere else.

Good luck to all this upcoming season.

I get a kick out of hearing the guys that talk about letting the weather, moon, etc decide whether they hunt. I don’t care. If I can hunt, I’m hunting.

I deer hunt 40-60 days every fall, and have for the last 25-30 years. I haven't kept any records that might show a difference in the number of deer sightings based on the moon phase. I have killed enough nice bucks and seen enough deer with a full moon or any other moon for that matter to feel pretty good about my chances regardless of the moon phase. I've killed some nice bucks when it's unseasonably warm, but I don't see as many deer moving in those conditions. I don't go hunting when it's raining hard unless it's gun season when other hunters will be moving deer. I live in Ohio.

The thing I have noticed is really high wind shut things down for me

Have you ever looked at moon position instead of phase? The data I've collected points toward that maybe having an impact, but it's still too early to say for sure.

Last season surprised me. I typically don't hunt in the rain either, but it rained Nov 10-15 last year pretty much nonstop. There's no way I'm missing that timeframe. That's usually when stuff starts heating up at my hunting club, so I hunted all day those days expecting to still see good movement. Seeing 3 deer in a morning hunt from that stand is pretty much a given most of the time. On really good days, 20+ is normal. I've seen over 30 one day from that spot. It was dead on those 5 days. I saw 1-2 deer per day on dark to dark hunts. It stopped raining around 11AM on the 15. Within 30 mins, I started seeing deer. By the time I got down at dark, I had seen over 20. The next morning was crazy. I had seen over a dozen deer by about 8:30AM when I shot my 12pt.

I hunt regardless, but I've noticed a really high wind tends to shut things down too. A good solid wind is good, but really hard gusts or sustained high wind is bad. Then again, my dad killed his biggest-bodied buck (a 10pt that weighed 264lbs) on a day it was so windy that he decided to go home. He thinks the sound of him coming down the pine tree in his climber made the buck think he was a buck making a rub. He came in aggressively all bowed up looking for a fight.

https://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/news/2017/w



Ignore moon, study weather.

That's moon phase, not moon position. I'm more interested in the position than the phase. Even if the moon position only influences the deer move a little later, it still could have an impact.

It's a lot easier for the guys up north to say pay attention to the weather. Down here, it's not completely abnormal to be hunting in a t shirt in December. I've been hunting in December swatting mosquitoes.

I have never seen moon phases affect deer movement but I have seen the weather make a difference.

Cool snaps and incoming lows will have them moving more.

I am a guide in SC and have been since 2002.

I have noticed this also.

If the squirrels aren’t moving then the deer won’t either.

@RDTCU I ordered a Moon Guide this morning. I'll still hunt every free minute regardless of what it tells me, but it'll be interesting to see how it stacks up.

I quit going out on those days after I had a very large limb come down about 60 yards away from me. It was large enough that a direct hit could have been fatal. I get enough days in the field during the season without something like that happening

It's been said before, but it's less about the moon phase than the moon position, like the tides.