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This is a long rant based on something that has bothered me for years. My intent is to shed light on the futility of reliance on solunar tables for hog hunting. This isn't to say that they are not necessarily helpful. I know people swear by them, but to emphasize that there is plenty of good hog hunting that occurs outside of solunar periods. Preliminary data so far would indicate that your chances of seeing and/or shooting at a hog during a solunar period isn't really any better than during any other non-solunar period.
Back 7 or 8 years ago, when I was trying to figure out any possible advantage I could have on hunting hogs, I noticed that while in contact with other folks in north Texas, that some of us would get on hogs and others would not see squat. This was despite popularly considered bonus period such as hunting right before a storm (which is "really supposed to get the hogs moving" - whatever that means) or solunar periods. While it sounded naive, it seems weird that being out when hunting was supposed to be so optimal that failure was more common than success. It really sucked when I was the one failing, LOL.
So I decided to plot hog activity recorded on my game cameras relative to solunar major periods and minor periods. These are times when animal activity is supposed to be at its highest. Originally, solunar tables were developed based on fishing and seemed to correlate strongly. Somewhere along the line, somebody applied it to hunting. There don't seem to be a lot of studies on this with very many game animals. What few that I can find do so that there is some correlation with some animals moving during solunar periods, but "moving" may simply be a deer getting up from a bedded position, walking 20 yards, and they bedding back down again. Or it may be that "moving" was physically traveling to a new location or feeding. Several folks I knew would swear by solunar tables as being a factor they considered before going hunting for hogs. So I plotted out my data and found zero correlation between hogs on game cameras on my property and solunar periods. Fore example, I would find hogs that showed up just after sundown every day regardless of the solunar period (until I shot them). I had some hogs that showed up completely randomly in that they may or may not come on any given night and when they did, it would be virtually any time so long as it was after dark. I had hogs present when there weren't solunar periods. Of course some were present during solunar periods, but the pattern that emerged was that hogs were more apt to be present on their own schedules rather than any solunar schedule. When I pointed this out to my solunar supporters, they (usually) patiently explained to me, as if to a child, that solunar tables were not the be all to end all of determining hog activity. They noted that many other things influence hogs much more so than solunar periods and so if a hog didn't show up during a solunar period, it wasn't that the solunar tables had failed, but that some other influence had kept the hog from showing up.
I found this to be a very revealing insight into hunting mentality. I likened it to miracle baits and attractants that folks would swear by as to being really able to bring in the hogs. In their eyes, when it worked, it was because the tables or miracle attractant was the determining factor. When it didn't work, it was due to other forces. In other words, the concepts were non-falsifiable. I own some lucky underwear that work like that as well.
Last year, I had a decent year hunting hogs. I now (nearly all the time) record when I am seeing hogs or on hogs. As a result, I have some decent data from my hunts from last year and so far I have gone through about 8 months of hunting success videos. It is not a perfect data set by any stretch. There are hunts where I did see hogs during the night, but never managed to get a shot off and so didn't save the video. However, the successful hunt videos often include failed stalks and so have additional data within them. So while there is some lost data, I would argue that it is fairly random and not apt to skew the overall results significant.
In the 8 months of data so far, I have 66 'events' of seeing hogs or being on hogs during the course of 50 nights of hunting (out of ~110 days hunted). 'Events' are unrelated instances. For example, I could watch one field during a night have have 3 separate hunting events where I spotted (and usually stalked and shot) at different groups or individuals of hogs. Or, I could have separate events on completely different properties. So right now, I have hog activity identified during 11 solunar major periods. I have hog activity recorded during 6 solunar minor periods. I have hog activity during 49 NON solunar periods. For any given day there may be as many as 2 major periods (which are 2 hours each) and 2 minor periods (1 hour each) for a total of 6 hours. A few times a month, there may be 1 major or 1 minor period missing. For example, there were 3 days in August 2019 in my area that were missing 1 major period and 2 days that were missing 1 minor period.
On average, slightly less than 1/4 of any given day is comprised of solunar periods when animals should be moving and hunting is prime. My data so far show that slightly more than 1/4 of my hog observations were during solunar periods. That would indicate that there might be something to solunar predictions of activity (but I doubt it is statistically significant). However, the 49 times I was on hogs during non-solunar periods indicates that opting not to hunt during non-solunar periods would mean missing out on the vast majority of hunting opportunities available. This is rather critical. While solunar periods might be slightly beneficial to hog hunting, on any given day, you are actually much more likely to be on hogs during a non-solunar period. This is to be expected given that non-solunar periods comprise just slightly more than 75% of the time. Bottom line. HOGS DON'T KNOW OR CARE ABOUT SOLUNAR TABLES. Hogs are active and "moving" pretty much any time they are not asleep. The trick is simply to be where the hogs are. That goes back to the problem mentioned above where several of us could be hunting the same night in different locations and some of us get on hogs and the rest do not. If you aren't where the hogs are, then you have no hunt.
So solunar periods comprise just under 25% of each day. Based on my data so far, 57 of my 66 hog hunting events (86%) occur during a span of 5 hour and 45 minutes, from 6:15 pm to midnight (which is just under 25% of the day). That is pretty good considering that during the summer months when the set sets after 8:00 pm, I am often not even starting to hunt until after 8:00 pm.
The point here is that when it comes to hog hunting, putting in the time is more relevant than basing your hunting on celestial events. I hunt an average of 3.3 nights a week. There are a lot of nights I do NOT see hogs or get hogs regardless of solunar tables, but I know that hogs will be out and about on one of my properties where I can get them sooner or later and the trick is to be there when they are there. And this is a shortcoming I see of the solunar tables. They just claim animals are "moving" more during the peaks. Nothing about them says that the animals will be where you are. You have to be where the animals are, which is the bottom line of hunting, regardless of everything else. If you aren't where the animals are, then you aren't shooting any animals.
I will try to get the rest of the data from the year compiled. It is a slow process as I have to go back and watch the old videos to extract the information. I will have a few more data points as well from hunts where I did manage to save the video despite not getting a hog.
Back 7 or 8 years ago, when I was trying to figure out any possible advantage I could have on hunting hogs, I noticed that while in contact with other folks in north Texas, that some of us would get on hogs and others would not see squat. This was despite popularly considered bonus period such as hunting right before a storm (which is "really supposed to get the hogs moving" - whatever that means) or solunar periods. While it sounded naive, it seems weird that being out when hunting was supposed to be so optimal that failure was more common than success. It really sucked when I was the one failing, LOL.
So I decided to plot hog activity recorded on my game cameras relative to solunar major periods and minor periods. These are times when animal activity is supposed to be at its highest. Originally, solunar tables were developed based on fishing and seemed to correlate strongly. Somewhere along the line, somebody applied it to hunting. There don't seem to be a lot of studies on this with very many game animals. What few that I can find do so that there is some correlation with some animals moving during solunar periods, but "moving" may simply be a deer getting up from a bedded position, walking 20 yards, and they bedding back down again. Or it may be that "moving" was physically traveling to a new location or feeding. Several folks I knew would swear by solunar tables as being a factor they considered before going hunting for hogs. So I plotted out my data and found zero correlation between hogs on game cameras on my property and solunar periods. Fore example, I would find hogs that showed up just after sundown every day regardless of the solunar period (until I shot them). I had some hogs that showed up completely randomly in that they may or may not come on any given night and when they did, it would be virtually any time so long as it was after dark. I had hogs present when there weren't solunar periods. Of course some were present during solunar periods, but the pattern that emerged was that hogs were more apt to be present on their own schedules rather than any solunar schedule. When I pointed this out to my solunar supporters, they (usually) patiently explained to me, as if to a child, that solunar tables were not the be all to end all of determining hog activity. They noted that many other things influence hogs much more so than solunar periods and so if a hog didn't show up during a solunar period, it wasn't that the solunar tables had failed, but that some other influence had kept the hog from showing up.
I found this to be a very revealing insight into hunting mentality. I likened it to miracle baits and attractants that folks would swear by as to being really able to bring in the hogs. In their eyes, when it worked, it was because the tables or miracle attractant was the determining factor. When it didn't work, it was due to other forces. In other words, the concepts were non-falsifiable. I own some lucky underwear that work like that as well.
Last year, I had a decent year hunting hogs. I now (nearly all the time) record when I am seeing hogs or on hogs. As a result, I have some decent data from my hunts from last year and so far I have gone through about 8 months of hunting success videos. It is not a perfect data set by any stretch. There are hunts where I did see hogs during the night, but never managed to get a shot off and so didn't save the video. However, the successful hunt videos often include failed stalks and so have additional data within them. So while there is some lost data, I would argue that it is fairly random and not apt to skew the overall results significant.
In the 8 months of data so far, I have 66 'events' of seeing hogs or being on hogs during the course of 50 nights of hunting (out of ~110 days hunted). 'Events' are unrelated instances. For example, I could watch one field during a night have have 3 separate hunting events where I spotted (and usually stalked and shot) at different groups or individuals of hogs. Or, I could have separate events on completely different properties. So right now, I have hog activity identified during 11 solunar major periods. I have hog activity recorded during 6 solunar minor periods. I have hog activity during 49 NON solunar periods. For any given day there may be as many as 2 major periods (which are 2 hours each) and 2 minor periods (1 hour each) for a total of 6 hours. A few times a month, there may be 1 major or 1 minor period missing. For example, there were 3 days in August 2019 in my area that were missing 1 major period and 2 days that were missing 1 minor period.
On average, slightly less than 1/4 of any given day is comprised of solunar periods when animals should be moving and hunting is prime. My data so far show that slightly more than 1/4 of my hog observations were during solunar periods. That would indicate that there might be something to solunar predictions of activity (but I doubt it is statistically significant). However, the 49 times I was on hogs during non-solunar periods indicates that opting not to hunt during non-solunar periods would mean missing out on the vast majority of hunting opportunities available. This is rather critical. While solunar periods might be slightly beneficial to hog hunting, on any given day, you are actually much more likely to be on hogs during a non-solunar period. This is to be expected given that non-solunar periods comprise just slightly more than 75% of the time. Bottom line. HOGS DON'T KNOW OR CARE ABOUT SOLUNAR TABLES. Hogs are active and "moving" pretty much any time they are not asleep. The trick is simply to be where the hogs are. That goes back to the problem mentioned above where several of us could be hunting the same night in different locations and some of us get on hogs and the rest do not. If you aren't where the hogs are, then you have no hunt.
So solunar periods comprise just under 25% of each day. Based on my data so far, 57 of my 66 hog hunting events (86%) occur during a span of 5 hour and 45 minutes, from 6:15 pm to midnight (which is just under 25% of the day). That is pretty good considering that during the summer months when the set sets after 8:00 pm, I am often not even starting to hunt until after 8:00 pm.
The point here is that when it comes to hog hunting, putting in the time is more relevant than basing your hunting on celestial events. I hunt an average of 3.3 nights a week. There are a lot of nights I do NOT see hogs or get hogs regardless of solunar tables, but I know that hogs will be out and about on one of my properties where I can get them sooner or later and the trick is to be there when they are there. And this is a shortcoming I see of the solunar tables. They just claim animals are "moving" more during the peaks. Nothing about them says that the animals will be where you are. You have to be where the animals are, which is the bottom line of hunting, regardless of everything else. If you aren't where the animals are, then you aren't shooting any animals.
I will try to get the rest of the data from the year compiled. It is a slow process as I have to go back and watch the old videos to extract the information. I will have a few more data points as well from hunts where I did manage to save the video despite not getting a hog.
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