Deer and the Moon
You can easily find out the specific moon times for your exact hunting area by going to the U.S. Naval Observatory's web site which will give you several types of information useful to the hunter. It will give you sunrise and sunset times as well as moon transit times. The moon transit time is the time when the moon is directly overhead (time of increased feeding activity). You can add thirteen hours to that time and figure out the time the moon is underfoot (the other increased feeding period).
Directions for Using the Observatory Site
1. Type in the following address to the US Naval Observatory site : http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html
Click here for a direct link to the site
This web page should appear:
2. Next, select the month, year and date you want to know the moon time for and then enter your city or town and state.
3. Click the "Get Data" button and the following page should appear with the sun and moon times.
4. Find the moon transit time. This is the time the moon is directly overhead and indicates peak feeding activity. The other feeding period is 13 hours after the transit time.
As you can see, now you can find the peak feeding time for the deer is your specific location for any date that you choose. We use this site to check moon times a year in advance to plan our next year's hunting trips. There is no sense in planning a trip when the moon times do not match the evening and morning hunts.
We hope this information is helpful to you and will help you plan so your hunts will be the most productive. Like everything in deer hunting, this is only one piece of the puzzle to increase your odds when trying to tag that big buck. By using the moon time data, you can at least try to up those odds in your favor by hunting the times the deer are most active.
If you are a skeptic go ahead and try hunting the moon times and see if it makes a difference. We did and now we swear by it!! Good Luck and let us know if the moon times work for you!!