Lunar game activity predictions apps

[theblakester]

I've been using the "Isolunar" app now for a while to tell me how full the moon is going to be, and when it should rise and set each night.
It also has indicators that say which nights of the month are going to be the best overall. Basically, each month, the closer to full moon and new moon, the better the overall hunting/fishing should be.
Each night has a major and minor period (generally 3 hrs and 1.5 hrs respectively). "Peak" times occur in the middle of each period. These period/peak times predict the most game activity in a given night. Lately I've noticed that I'm seeing a lot more movement during the major and minor periods (even if it's only coons, rabbits etc) and more specifically/legitimately closer to the peak times.
In the past, I've heard that lunar predictions are pretty accurate. Just wondering if these major and minor periods and/or peak times each night have proven to be beneficial for others more often than not.

 

[Brian Shaffer]

Let me give you a tongue and cheek response sprinkled with fact. Solunar tables have been in use for over 100 years (I found this online) despite the fact that they were only developed less than 90 years ago (1926). They were developed and proofed certain types of game fish (record catches) and then applied to mammals and birds despite the mammals and birds not having the same sort of stimulus reactions as fish and no studies actually proofing out any sort of definitive correlations. Many hunters find solunar theory works and they attribute their success to it, but when their hunts fail during peak periods, they blame other factors or simply fail to take notice when hunts fail during peaks. Successful hunts during non-peak periods are just "getting lucky." Solunar theory purportedly works so long as all other conditions are conducive, which happens the the basis for which my lucky underwear works. In other words, solunar factors are extremely low down on the list of influences on mammals and birds and their behavior.

Strangely, while solunar powers are supposed to influence all the animals, humans are apparently unaffected by this influence despite the fact that humans are animals.

It is theorized that for land-based animals, the expansion and contraction of the earth's surface during solunar peaks and such release ions into the atmosphere and the animals respond to the ions. No study has been found to confirm that this is going on.

Use the tables if you like, but I would not pass up an opportunity to hunt because of poor solunar factors. I have shot too many hogs during poor solunar periods.

If you have a game camera, chart the activity on it versus the solunar tables and see what you come up with.

 

[LOMASA]

I am not an expert, but I have been hunting hogs for the last 30 years (I am 48). In my country they have been considered pest before I was born. We have the european ones, not the ferals you have up there in Texas.

Everyone who has been night hunting them for some time would agree that during the nights you have peak moments where ALL animals are moving/feeding etc (cows, horses, rabits, foxes, hogs) while there are some hours where game disappears, the cows lay down, etc, etc.

Down here, when that happens we say that "the night is dead", these periods are often after midnight.

I have studied trail cams activity during the last 8 years and noticed that when solar/moon tables shows low activity, most times are correct, also when walking at night I noticed this, but not the other way round, some times the tables shows activity but I can't find a single hog, maybe because they have change places and are feeding somewhere else.

I am not sure if they work or not, but I am sure that there are certain hours during the night that animals are mucho more active than others. When they move, they all move.

Don't know up there, but here, during the first hours after sunset we see more sows and young pigs, the real good ones "mostly" move more later in the night. Also with too much moon, the old lonely boars are very difficult to find.

The best moment to hunt the old ones is during our winter when sows are in heat, then they are together with the group and are easier to catch them. Every group is a family with a leader sow with daughters of previous years, their piglets and maybe a young boar also son of her from prevoius year.after a while they move away alone.

Each family has their territory, and several families can share it, but big old males have a bigger area and move through it looking for sows in heat and food.

Sometimes, it takes them a month to return to a given place, they spend some days in the area and then disappear again for some weeks.

Well, back to the thread title, there is something with the tables, I don't know exactly what is, but I try to avoid nights shown in the tables with zero activity.

But human activity (hunting preassure, harvesting crops during nights, moving cattle with dogs, etc) will directly affect hog movements despite what a solar/moon table says...

Regards from sunny Uruguay