This season of the year is one I find myself trying to speed through — an exercise in futility, of course — because I find myself to be a bit nicer, and more energetic, during times when more daylight hours reign.

Yes, I’m definitely subject to the effects of SADD: Depression and lassitude caused by reduced hours of sunlight. Doesn’t do any good to wish time away, especially at an age when time has, instead of seeming endless, become something much more finite.

So, I find myself pondering the relevance of time in different aspects of life.

Time, and timing, are often important to outdoor activities, such as hunting. Many novices don’t consider planning hunting trips to coincide with the dark phases of the moon or — if they’ve heard of the practice — consider the concept a “superstition” from bygone eras. Yet a lot of successful old-timers wouldn’t consider going hunting during periods when the full moon is shining all night, if they have a choice.

Though most herbivores possess the ability to see much better than humans in limited light conditions, the various predators who dine on them have far superior night vision in comparison. During periods of moonless nights, deer and elk tend to do most of their feeding during daytime, go to water before dark, then find a reasonably secure place to bed down until skies brighten enough to give them better chances of spotting danger.

Conversely, during nights brightly lit by the moon, the deer/elk will often be out grazing all night because they have a much better chance of seeing approaching danger in time to escape; also being better able to see the terrain they may need to run across lessens the likelihood of an injury which might allow a predator to catch them or otherwise hinder their survival abilities.

Dad had told me these things, but I’d never understood the true impact of moonlight until a hunting trip at Dismal Creek, when, after a fruitless morning hunt — lots of tracks, no deer seen — I’d fished for a while before deciding on a late afternoon hunt below camp.

I hadn’t gone that way before but it was good-looking deer habitat with plenty of tracks. I kept going, expecting to spot a buck at any moment, until I was a couple miles from camp and I suddenly realized it was nearly dark.

“Oh, my (or something similar)”, I muttered, “I’ll never get back before dark.”

I turned around, but didn’t get far before I couldn’t see.

I hadn’t gone a quarter-mile before seeing a couple shapes — deer — sneaking away from my route. In the two hours it took to reach camp, I saw over 20 deer out feeding in the area where I’d spotted none earlier.

The same seems true of fish. A full moon allows them to feed more at night, thus less avidly in daytime. Timing is important. You’ll usually see more deer feeding during the daytime, and have more strikes from trout during the dark phase of the moon.

— Bill Barker writes about the outdoors for the Corvallis Gazette-Times.