Full Moon

Its the full moon. Everywhere, trout are shunning the shallows. The weather tends to get calmer. Ducks fly late and early - outside of hours. Cows stay up all night mooing and chewing their cud. Now our predecessors (clearly none of them are on F&G councils) knew about this and they called the full moon period in Autumn and early winter "The Hunters Moon". Game could be tracked and killed and food stocked for the winter ahead.

In my younger years I used to spend a bit of time outdoors at night on the full moon. Ducks would fly at 8pm or later. General animal activity was brisk. I've had frost fall on me while out and about, you knew it was cold as in biting. Brian and I made some interesting discoveries on these nights, such as that .22 tracer rounds behave quite interestingly when skipped across water. They may not go where you expect them to, so trust me when I say that firing a rifle at a target with a water backdrop should always give you pause to think again....

I'd be prepared advocate a couple of nights per season, on the full moon, where 24 hour duck hunting could take place. This wouldn't suit everyone, but it would give people the chance to go and try something new - who knows they may hate it, but then again they might love a new adventure.....