Full Moon for Colorado 1st season. Any tips?

[Troy R]

I will be hunting Colorado 1st season, and have noticed there will be a full moon that week. Does anyone have any tips for hunting post rut bulls during a full moon?

 

[wytex]

They shouldn't be post rut and just hunt all day.
Full moon might have them bugling at night, listen and head that way before first light. They may broadcast their travel routes to bedding areas at night, cut them off getting there.

 

[Ben Long]

Ignore the moon.

 

[Dsnow9]

1st season has been at or close to full moon more often than not for the last ten years.

 

[BT_NVhunter]

Yeah I’ve seen more than one time 1st rifle described as end of rut with the late cows still in heat. Definitely might increase night activity but if there are still hot cows I think the activity would be going on with little or no moon.

 

[D_Walt]

Moon doesn’t mean much once the guns start popping at daybreak opening day. Don’t overthink it, you only have 5 days in 1st rifle, get out and hunt all day.

 

[wytex]

Brain fart on my part, I read OP as archery season not 1st rifle.
Listen to these guys, should be end of rut and the moon will not affect your hunt much at all.

 

[longtail55]

Howl at it

 

[cedahm]

Moon doesn’t mean much once the guns start popping at daybreak opening day. Don’t overthink it, you only have 5 days in 1st rifle, get out and hunt all day.

My BIL held fast to the full moon stuff since we met 25 years ago.

At one point just a few years ago when having the debate for the thousandth time, I tallied up all of our group's harvested elk and matched those dates against the moon phase at the time. Not a giant sample - but they fell in every single phase of the moon. If he had better dated his old photos, or if any of us had better memories, I bet I'd find the same in older data.

The only adjustment I make during full- or nearly-full moon phases is leaving camp earlier in the morning given the abundance of available light.

 

[Jason73]

Elk talk podcast has a dedicated episode, maybe more on this topic. Give a listen. Good luck on your hunt.

 

[jvanhoy]

Hunt all day. No napping back in camp. Just like all moon phases if you want to kill elk.

 

[Mako3382]

Ignore the moon.

Agreed

 

[burtonsean]

My BIL held fast to the full moon stuff since we met 25 years ago.

At one point just a few years ago when having the debate for the thousandth time, I tallied up all of our group's harvested elk and matched those dates against the moon phase at the time. Not a giant sample - but they fell in every single phase of the moon. If he had better dated his old photos, or if any of us had better memories, I bet I'd find the same in older data.

The only adjustment I make during full- or nearly-full moon phases is leaving camp earlier in the morning given the abundance of available light.

I did something similar. I had a excel sheet on my phone and would tally up every animal we saw for 3 years and every animal we shot for 10+ years that we knew the exact date and time. Then added in moon phase, whether the moon was up or down, time of day, weather, perceived hunting pressure, etc. After all the data points we concluded that the moon phase and rise/set times didn't matter on seeing animals. The only real pattern that seemed to immerge was that animals seemed to sneak around between 10:30am and 2 pm during moon phases half or more and rise/set times that were at night....but there were some outliers there too. Moral of the story, unless you're hunting elk during the rut with a bow and have to pick a time to hunt, ignore the moon and just hunt hard all day or be at glass all day.