
“November 2 to 7 could be really good this year, especially if you get cold weather,” he says.
2021 moon phases full#
Mark’s favorite time to hunt the rut is during the full moon and the 5 to 7 days prior as the moon waxes toward 100 percent illumination.
2021 moon phases tv#
This is a good week to take off and hunt hard during any year.īefore every season I text my friend and outdoor TV personality Mark Drury, a moon fanatic like me, and ask, “What you think about the moon this year?”

Looking back to my notes and all the research I’ve done over the years, it’s a fact that many huge bucks are killed every season during the seeking phase of the rut the first week of November. One researcher said, “That would be a good seven days to work.”įorget the science, at least for this year’s rut cycle. The NC State study found that during the first-quarter, when the moon is 90 degrees away from the sun and is half-illuminated, deer move less on average throughout the day than in all the other phases. The cooler the temperature, maybe a hard frost, the more deer you’ll see. Get settled on stand early and watch hard that first hour. This season, with the moon dark and waxing crescent for 6 days, expect to see the most does, and maybe a buck pushing a doe, from sunrise until 9:00a.m.

Halloween week, when bucks scrape like fiends and prowl for does that are not quite ready to breed, is one of my favorite times to bowhunt. Their data showed that during a new moon, which this rut cycle rises on October 25 and wanes on the dark side through Halloween (zero to 47 percent daily illumination) deer move most actively at daylight, with movement decreasing noticeably the rest of the day. READ NEXT: Why I Hunt the Whitetail Rut by Moon Phase-and You Should Too In that project, researchers attached GPS collars to does and bucks and tracked their movements throughout the moon phases. In part one of this moon special, I spoke about a study conducted at North Carolina State that I rely on when planning my hunts across North America each season.

To that end, I am pleased to team with Outdoor Life to bring you my 12 th annual Big Deer moon-and-rut hunting guide with the following predictions and advice. With that said, I do believe that some days and weeks can be slightly better than others each season, according to when the four major phases of the moon line out the last week of October through mid-November. Anytime you hunt rutting deer, you’ve got a decent shot to see and shoot a big buck. So, plan your hunting vacation any time from the pre-rut of Halloween week though peak breeding in mid-November, and you’re guaranteed to hunt some phase of the rut. It’s been like that for decades in the Northern two-thirds of America, and that will not change. Biologists say that in any given year, 90 percent of mature whitetail does will come into heat and bucks will happily breed them from roughly November 5-20, regardless of weather, barometric pressure, moon phase or any other environmental factor.
