Elk Harvest and Moon Phases

[cnelk]

I went back and did some research of my elk harvests and the moon phases
This is based on my past 10 archery elk harvests

3 were within 3 days of the full moon

7 were taken with ~50% visible moon [waning or waxing]

Interesting

[ctdad]

How many days of each moon phase did you hunt on average?

[Freebird134]

There is a full moon every 28 days. There are 7 days in that cycle that are within 3 days of a full moon (3 before, 3 after, plus the day with a full moon).

7/28 = .25 or 25% of days are within 3 days of a full moon. Thus, by complete random chance, you'd expect to kill 2.5 of your 10 bulls within 3 days of a full moon. 2.5 rounds to 3. Exactly what you would expect by complete random chance!

[Swede]

I checked over 20 kills I have record of, and find I have shot more elk at, or near the full moon than at any other time. I think it is totally coincidence, but sufficient to convince me there is no reason not to hunt at that time.

[cnelk]

How many days of each moon phase did you hunt on average?

i did not equate that. i roll the dice each year for a 10 day hunt between ~Sept 4 - 14.
and if i dont connect during that time, i go for long weekends until season is over.

No regards to any moon phase, just the opportunity to hunt

[ctdad]

Freebirds analysis is dead on IF you are hunting every day of the season, or IF you are hunting the same number of days during each different moon phases.

However, if you are hunting a small percentage of your time during a particular moon phase, but killing a large percentage of your elk during that phase, then it may be noteworthy.

If Cnelk hunted 6 days total that were within 3 days of the full moon and killed 3 elk, then he killed elk 50% of the time in that moon phase. If he hunted 60 days in that time period, then he killed elk 5% of the time.

[Freebird134]

ctdad,

My approach works too if it is just a random distribution of dates, which is pretty much what cnelk said he does (rolls the dice and picks dates independent of moon phase).

If you take the same approach for 50% full (3 days on each side of the waxing or waning), you have 14 days within 3 days of 50% full, and would expect him to have killed 5 bulls within 50%. Seven is awfully close to 5 I'll run a chi-sq analysis on that if you want, but I'll bet you there is not a significant effect of moon timing on cnelk's elk kills.

[Freebird134]

Heck, I just did the stats and 7 is not significantly different from what would be expected by pure chance:

Results
Chi squared equals 1.600 with 1 degrees of freedom.
The two-tailed P value equals 0.2059

P > 0.05, so not significantly different. Moon phases have no effect on cnelk's harvest.

[cnelk]

Thanks for all the data guys. Not sure if I know what it all means!

I did the research for fun, you guys took it to a different level!

[bnsafe]

i have no idea about elk, but for mo whitetails full moons meant not seeing deer early, but usually picked up around 10. dark meant deer earlier and usually more activity. just my opinion but i would prefer pitch black for deer. i have no idea why or if there is even a difference other than my un scientific opinion.

[ctdad]

Freebird,

You just confirmed what I was getting at. Moon is not a significant factor.

Cnelk, thanks for sharing your info. This is the first time I've ever seen someone post kills vs. moon phase.

[WapitiTalk1]

This hurts my head (no big surprise there).. . I'm just gonna hunt the last two weeks of September every year till I can't hunt any more and hope for the best.

[>>>---WW---->]

That Freebird is a real mathmaticion. Have you heard about the constipated mathmaticion that had to work it out with a pencil?

Personally, I have never kept track of when I kill elk. I just go hunting and shoot em. But I have noticed here in western Colorado that I see a lot more mule deer out grazing in the middle of the day during the brighter phases of the moon. Been noticing this for many years.

[elkmtngear]

Heck, I just did the stats and 7 is not significantly different from what would be expected by pure chance:

Results
Chi squared equals 1.600 with 1 degrees of freedom.
The two-tailed P value equals 0.2059

P > 0.05, so not significantly different. Moon phases have no effect on cnelk's harvest.

Musician and Mathematician? Your brain is ambidexterous, dude!

[Freebird134]

Have you heard about the constipated mathmaticion that had to work it out with a pencil?

Wow.

[cnelk]

Since it was determined that moon phases dont impact elk hunting/harvest, here is a link to the moon phase this September.
I hope it is your lucky time when you plan on going!

http://www.moonconnection.com/moon-september-2013.phtml

[easeup]

you guys impress me with more than just hunting elk.

here is some more for your consternation......
the moon tables are very important. many of us know that fishing is better when the moon is directly over head or directly under neath your feet. and less influenced by the phase it is at.
the whitetail hunters know that they see more deer up during the middle part of the day and not so much first and last hour of the day during a full moon phase. same is true for elk I think. sure they are up during the full moon at night and many times dont seem to be out first and last hour as you would expect. these experiences occur when the moon is directly overhead or underneath your feet.
so dont discount the moon charts......

[Freebird134]

Since it was determined that moon phases dont impact elk hunting/harvest

so dont discount the moon charts......

I should have been more careful in my words when I said the moon didn't affect cnelk's harvest times. What I should have said is that there is no statistical evidence that the pattern of harvest was affected by the moon. Just because the stats didn't detect an effect of the moon does not mean that moon has no effect.

We need a bigger sample size. So, kill some more elk cnelk!!!!

[cnelk]

Freebird - Some homework for you:

I went back thru the same time period and added in more elk harvests that my buddies had during the same time I hunted.

You can add 9 kills during ~50% moon visibility and 3 kills within 3 days of a full moon.

So...
That makes a total of 16 killed during 50% moon visibility [waning/waxing]
and 6 within 3 days of a full moon.

This was for the past 10 years - 22 elk with archery gear. Not too bad

[Freebird134]

No prob. I ran a chi-sq, which really is a basic analysis. It just asks "do the data differ from what you would expect by complete random chance."

What do you mean by "killed during 50% moon visibility." I'm assuming you mean within 3 days of 50%, so there are a total of 14 days of each moon cycle that fit this category. Please tell me if this is not correct--please tell us what you mean exactly by "during 50%"

We are also assuming you hunted days random of moon visibility. Even if you paid no attention to moon visibility, if for some reason you hunted twice as much when the moon was near 50% then these results are completely invalid. I assume you don't know the exact number of days and moon phases for those hunt days for the last 10 years! So we will just have to assume it was enough different days that it was "functionally random."

In that case, you guys did kill more elk than would be expected during 50% moon phase. You killed 16 during the 50% moon phase and we'd expect you to only kill 11 (since half of the days of a moon cycle are within 3 days of 50% moon, you would expect half of the elk to be killed during that time). You guys killed about 50% more than would be expected. The chi-sq test results are below. If the p value is less than 0.05 it means a significant difference (your p = 0.03).

Chi squared equals 4.545 with 1 degrees of freedom.
The two-tailed P value equals 0.0330

So does this mean we should start scheduling our hunts for 50% moon days?

[cnelk]

After reviewing the phases of the moon and harvest dates, I would have to resubmit the data to state the following:

16 harvests were in a moon phase of 50% visibility OR LESS [some were new moon, 1st quarter, etc]
6 harvests were in a moon phase of 90% visibility OR MORE [very near or at full moon]

Is this helpful?
Sorry, I dont know the EXACT moon's visibility of each elk harvest.

[Freebird134]

After reviewing the phases of the moon and harvest dates, I would have to resubmit the data to state the following:

16 harvests were in a moon phase of 50% visibility OR LESS [some were new moon, 1st quarter, etc]
6 harvests were in a moon phase of 90% visibility OR MORE [very near or at full moon]

Is this helpful?
Sorry, I dont know the EXACT moon's visibility of each elk harvest.

How many days of a lunar month are 90% visibility?

[cnelk]

Quick research shows 3-4 days on either side of the full moon date have > 90% or more.
Shall we say 7 days are 90% or more visibility?

And approx 14 days have < 50%

But it somewhat depends on where the observer is located on earth [but lets not go there ]

[Freebird134]

I'm not sure this analysis is very meaningful, because you are really parsing out the data by using 3 categories now. But here it is:

Category Observed Expected # Expected
1 <50% 16 11 50.000%
2 >90% 6 6 27.273%
3 50-90% 0 5 22.727%

Chi squared equals 7.273 with 2 degrees of freedom.
The two-tailed P value equals 0.0263


It's still significant. According to the analysis you guys did better than expected when the moon was dark, about what you would expect near a full moon, and less than you'd expect (zero) when the moon was out but not bright. You have some evidence that it's better hunting during darker moon, but I wouldn't schedule a hunt around it.

[cnelk]

I appreciate you analysis!
This year I am 'rolling the dice' for the first 2 weeks of Sept.
Not because of the moon, but other determining factors.
But I cant help but be excited about the moon phase during those dates according to the link I posted above.

I hope to have more data later this year

[easeup]

are you typing with one hand?

[cnelk]

are you typing with one hand?

I always type with one hand....