Outdoor Life - Moon Phases RSS

Help Us Pick The Prize for Our Next Caption Contest!

Alex Robinson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:33:47 -0500

So Outdoor Life is part of a cool contest operated by Crown Royal, sponsor of Field & Stream’s Hook Shots show and maker of the whiskey that comes in a purple bag. The contest is called “Pass the Crown,” and it’s a variation on the Secret Santa gift exchange anyone who’s ever worked in an office is familiar with. Are you lucky enough to have never worked in an office? Then here’s how this works:

Each day from now until Dec. 15 Crown Royal is giving away a prize to a different web site to pass along to its readers. Today is Outdoor Life’s turn, but here’s the catch. Crown’s not telling us which prize they’re giving us right away. Instead, we get a clue, embroidered on one of their famous purple bags,* and we have to guess what prize the clue refers to. Based on that guess, we then get to decide whether to keep the prize in our bag or steal one of the prizes that have already been opened by a different site. Here’s a list of the prizes that have already been opened.

This is where we need your help. Do we keep our prize, or steal one from somebody else? You’ve got until 4 PM this afternoon to weigh in. Check out our clue (below), then post your best argument for keeping the prize in our bag or for stealing a specific prize from another site in the comments section here or on our Facebook post about the contest over at facebook.com/outdoorlife. If you can convince us your argument is best, we’ll go with your suggestion. If you’re not convincing enough, we’ll make the decision ourselves.

We’ll post an update here tomorrow telling you what prize was in our bag, and whether we decided to keep it or not. Keep in mind that any of the five sites who come after us can steal our gift, so don’t get too attached to whatever we end up with!

And last, of course; how will we determine which of our readers wins the prize we end up with at the end of the contest? It’ll be a caption contest, photo and date TBD. Stay tuned!

*Crown is running this contest is to get the word out about the custom-embroidered Crown bags ($9.95), and the free personalized Crown Royal bottle labels (21 and over, only) available at CrownRoyal.com. If you’ve got a Crown-lover in your family, this would make a great gift.

Seven Things to Know About Temperature and Deer Activity

Alex Robinson — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:39:50 -0400

Fall is my favorite time of year, with the leaves changing color to brilliant yellow and crimson red and those frosty clear mornings that give way to comfortable, 60-degree days. It never gets old and it never lasts long enough. With fall comes a change of temperature and weather. It’s no secret that this has a big impact on whitetail deer activity.

After years of studying Boone and Crockett harvest data, I've been able to pattern certain trends in temperature and deer activity. Regardless of the region you hunt or time of year, here are some interesting facts about how temperature affects deer activity...

1. If your forecasted temperature is 5 to 10 degrees below your historical average, deer activity will increase by 30 to 55 percent.

2. There are dry temperatures and wet temperatures. Deer prefer humidity between 40 and 50 percent. If it’s 70 degrees out and the humidity is 70 percent, there won’t be much daylight activity even if you’re 5 degrees below average temperature as stated above. 

3. Watch your morning and evening temperatures in conjunction with the dew point. If they’re within 3 degrees or less of each other, records show a harvest increase and activity spikes.  

4. In early season, you will see scrape activity begin or increase on days that have lows in the 40-degree range or less for 3 or more consecutive days. 

5. Days after two or more consecutive hard frosts (27 degrees or lower) will see an increase in feeding and browsing, especially on food plots. 

6. Watch your weather forecast temperatures, if you see a quick rise in temperature forecast (10 degrees or more in 24 hours), hunt the PM before the increase, there's a good chance a front is passing and the barometer is rising. 

7. Logic tells us that on warm days it's better to hunt cover areas, closer to bedding and water sources. On Cool days, hunt food sources, transition zones and scrape and rub lines.

I hope some of these tips will help you afield. Follow temperature forecasts and deer activity predictions for your area on OutdoorLife.com/weather.

Photo: Chauncey Davis

Best Day to Deer Hunt: Dec. 21

Alex Robinson — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:46:42 -0500

Winter begins on the 21st of December every year. This year it has a special meaning for serious whitetail hunters. The winter solstice is when the sun is at its peak south. What’s special about this one is there’s a total lunar eclipse of the full moon the day after peak north lunar ascension.

OK, before you nod off like I'm giving a science lecture, consider this: in my many hours of breaking down trophy harvest data, one day stuck when I flipped through years of data, Nov. 8, 2003! On that day there was a total (not partial or prenumbral) eclipse of a full moon.

Amongst the 20 plus years of records it happened to be the number 1 day all-time. In fact, a two-day span around this date was off the charts for harvest. We are talking 400 P & Y bucks registered, 136 on the day of the eclipse. I decided to look into other lunar eclipses, not too many, especially total eclipses, but what I did find was one of the best (top two) days all-time for the month of December was a prenumbral eclipse.

I’m not totally sure why these days have an effect on deer movement, but they do. My advice, take the 21st off, head for the field and see what happens. We would appreciate any and all feedback on your hunt if you do. And mark on your calendar Dec. 10, 2011 also, as this event will happen again, then won’t repeat until Oct. 8, 2014 (at least during fall hunting seasons). Good Luck!

Master the Moon Phases

Alex Robinson — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:42:03 -0500

We all understand that hunting or fishing near sunrise or sunset is almost always the most productive. Well, the same goes for the moon, along with its effects of overhead and underfoot periods. Just as the sun has its yearly cycle of 365 days, the moon has a yearly cycle as well, but in much less time of 29.5 days.

The effects the lunar cycle has on tides and weather is well documented, these effects carry over into wildlife movements as proven through record harvest studies.

Next time you hear about a big buck being taken at noon or the next time you’re looking at trail camera pictures of the one you’re after, the chances are it was during one of these times; moonrise, moonset overhead or underfoot.

The chart wheel I’ve created will give you an idea why full and new moon can be the most productive. Each has three of the four prime moon times within daylight hours. These are great times to sit all day, especially if the rut is on.

We are entering my favorite time, waxing gibbous through full moon; 10 a.m. until noon and 3 p.m. until dark are your best times coming up.

It will be especially good if weather factors you’re following on Outdoor Life co-operate. Track the weather where you hunt and fish at OL Weather.

OL Weather: A Weather Report for Outdoorsmen

EricAichele — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:56:58 -0400

When I first began developing the idea for a weather site, I asked myself: "What kind of weather information is absolutely essential for sportsmen?"

All of us look forward to those magical days when the woods come alive with bucks chasing does or turkeys gobbling from their roosts, or those amazing times when, no matter what you throw, every cast draws a strike. The only problem: No one could predict when those magical hunting and fishing days would occur…until now.

CLICK HERE FOR OL WEATHER >>

After years of studying records and cross-referencing them to weather, moon and solar activity, I have partnered with Outdoor Life to develop a tool to predict exactly when the best days to be afield will be. Thousands of harvest and catch records were cross-referenced to site- and time-specific barometer, temperature, wind, sky cover and moon-phase data to determine the whitetail, turkey and fish forecasts you see here. Combining these tools can even further enhance your chances for success.

The best thing about our weather forecasts is that they’re built upon solid data that relates directly to your area of outdoor interest. And our 5-day forecasts are the most accurate, because we’ve based them upon thousands of cross-referenced data entries.

Fishermen will find our water temperature charts, relating specifically to individual species, invaluable in determining which days (and what hours of those days) will produce the best action.

Hunters can rely on our forecasts to tell them the absolute best days and times to be on stand because we’ve done all of the homework for them, comparing thousands of record-book entries for trophy deer and turkeys, then cross-referencing them with the actual weather conditions that occurred when those trophies were taken.

The unique result is the most useful and reliable weather forecasts anyone has ever produced specifically for hunters and fishermen.

Got a question about how all of this works? No problem. Simply post your question in our Answer’s Tool and we will be happy to try to answer it.

Want to help build our database to make it even bigger? Add your harvest information, and you’ll be automatically entered to possibly win some great outdoor prizes.

Got a comment about our site or a story to tell about how our information helped you in the field? Come join in our lively comments section.

So bookmark this page and use our information. We believe you’ll find it to be the most useful hunting and fishing tool you can find anywhere.

Moonstruck: The Effects of the Moon on Whitetails

Outdoor Life Intern — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:50:12 -0400

Though moonlight has helped melt the heart of many a fair maiden, the effects of the moon on whitetails is less understood. Many hunters, especially those in northern latitudes, believe that the breeding season is somehow ramped up by the moon phases that occur in November. Most biologists aren't as convinced.

Generally, the hunters who buy in to the notion that a lunar phase somehow controls the timing of the rut fall into one of two camps: those who believe the second full moon after the Autumnal Equinox and the contrarians who say it's the new moon that sends whitetails into a frenzy of licentiousness. Of course, this rutting moon business might come as news to most Southern hunters. Depending upon where one hunts in Dixie and upon the gene pool of local deer, the rut is liable to hit its peak at any time between late October and early February, moon or no moon. In some Southern states where various stockings of whitetails from other regions occurred during the middle part of the last century (most notably Mississippi, Alabama and Florida), the timing of the rut is all over the calendar.

Who Turned Out the Lights?
Scientists generally agree that it's actually the shrinking photoperiod, the shortening of the days‚ that is the main factor that kicks off the rut, with secondary causes such as genetics, predation or hunting pressure, the buck-to-doe ratio, local weather, average air temperature and habitat quality also playing a role. An in-depth study of whitetail breeding seasons was conducted at the turn of the 21st century and involved wildlife biologists from eight state fish and game agencies (including Maine, Michigan and Minnesota) and three universities. Essentially, results were based on backdating fetal ages of pregnant does and looking at corresponding lunar phases.

In summary of data from free-roaming populations, photoperiod as measured by calendar date is better than a particular moon phase for predicting deer breeding chronology, says David Osborn, wildlife research coordinator at the University of Georgia‚Äôs Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. Said Osborn when he presented the moon phase research at the 24th annual meeting of the Southeast Deer Study Group in St. Louis in 2001. The study found that the relationship between moon phase and deer breeding is more variable than the relationship between date and deer breeding, regardless of latitude. In our opinion, the bottom line is that moon phase has little influence on deer breeding at the individual and population levels. Furthermore, calendar dates based on long-term biological data remain the best predictor of deer breeding chronology.

Moon or no, deer are nocturnally inclined. Accepting that deer might travel more on a moonlit night is quite different from believing that moonlight triggers physiological changes in these animals that compel them to mate, however. Empirical evidence that lunar phases have anything to do with the deer rut is tenuous at best.

What the Heck Is a Hunter's Moon?
In the days leading up to and following the autumnal equinox, around the third week in September, the full moon might rise at sunset‚ or even before sunset‚ without any intervening period of darkness. Consequently, twilight extends much longer into the night.

September's Harvest Moon and October's Hunter' Moon are so named because farmers have a longer light period to bring in their crops, and hunters have more time to hunt, though nowadays, established legal shooting hours generally don‚Äôt accommodate it.