Moon Phases on Hogs

[billrob]

Does the full moon have a major effect on hog hunting?

I 'd like to go pig hunting and turkey scouting this weekend Bakersfield-San Luis Obispo area.

I know in late afternoon it will be easier to siloutte the turkeys at the roost.

 

[easymoney]

IMHO,
My personal pig hunting experience has it that, the moon does not have any effect wild pigs at all. They do not see all that well and their nose is their main sense of defense and food location. They are primarily nocturnal and travel to and from feeding or water areas at night. I feel that human pressure has a greater effect on where and how they travel. More people the more nocturnal they are. They can be found out at any time of day, but I see them much more around first and last light.
Turkeys will be down on the ground earlier if the moon is out very late, just before dawn. They feel safer if they can see well enough... I always get out before first light and walk the ridges, looking and listening for both pigs and turkeys. I hunt mainly with a bow and I generally don't like to hunt the evenings this early in the year. It is too easy to lose something when there is such a short daylight.
If you walk around in an area holding pigs or turkeys, you might just see them skylined if you look at first or last light.
Good luck, there are more pigs and turkeys in more places now, than ever before in California.

 

[EvBouret]

I dont have much experience with the hogs in California and their habits according the the lunar cycle. But I know in Hawaii it affects their habits a lot. Theres this one valley that is a 6 mile hike to get to and is archery only and flooded with pigs and goats. I have been there before during a no moon night and saw at least a dozen pigs during the day, then went again a few weeks later when it was almost a full moon and no hogs were seen during the day, there were still hogs in the valley as all the rose apples were fruiting and there was tons of rootings from the night before. we did see one small 30lber and a dozen or so footballs that must have been like 3 lbs. Sow was no where to be seen, we sat and watched them rooting around for about 10 minutes and decided to run at them hoping the mom would step out to protect her babies and we could get a shot off. They sat there and played dead in the leaves and the mom was no where. We even caught one, but let it go a few minutes later. The goat hunting was still excellent though!!! wooooo

 

[billrob]

Thanks I'm going to give it a shot.
I know I can always get good info here and feel confident in it.
If this area doesn't work I'll go up to FHL

 

[Nic Barca]

I know this is old but about a year ago, I was trying to figure out how the moon affects pigs. It seemed like the more nighttime moonlight they had, the less they would be out in the daylight hours. I figured this was due to the fact that without light, they had a harder time finding certain food, and needed to search into the light. So if the moon is up and bright all night, they would spend a very small portion of the daylight hours searching for food and would come out about an hour or less before and after dark. Also depending on what part of the night the moon was up, you would see more activity on either morning or evening side. Of course, there was a lot of factors to this: weather, what type of food, etc. but for a while it seemed like they held to the pattern really well.

 

[billrob]

Thanks Nick,
I'm still trying to figure them out.