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      Knowing the current weather condition and understanding its effect on wildlife will greatly improve your hunting and fishing success.

      Weather and Wildlife ratings and charts are based on steady fair weather. Adverse or changing weather can alter the ratings for any day or period. For most wildlife cloudy, rainy and windy weather is a deterrent to activity. However some of the absolute best days for heightened wildlife activity are immediately before and after a significant weather change such as a winter cold front. Knowing how game animals modify their travel and feeding tendencies before, during and after significant weather changes will allow even better use of the ratings in Weather and Wildlife charts. It is also important to recognize that during these poor weather events, wildlife activity may be reduced for a certain day or period within that day.

      Understanding the influence of the sun and moon on wildlife is only one part of the complex puzzle that helps predict when game animals and fish are most active. First and perhaps most important to putting together the puzzle is a good understanding of the individual species being pursued.

      All wild game and fish share many things in common such as their universal need for habitat sufficient to provide food and shelter. Many different species of game animals may live and thrive in the same habitat and as a result experience the same weather and the same solar and lunar influences. However game animals respond to these influences differently. For example: the same rainy and windy weather that may inhibit deer activity may in fact be good weather for waterfowl hunting. Obviously game animals are also different physiologically. Some animals are carnivores and exist entirely on the nutrition from other animals; others are herbivores that exist exclusively on vegetation, while others are omnivores and derive their nutrients from both vegetation and other animals and even insects. Knowing (or being familiar with) the diet of game animals you wish to pursue along with their habits will help in understanding and predicting daily movement patterns.

      General Game Animals include several groups of game animals. The largest group is ungulates, which are hoofed mammals comprising one of the most diverse and successful groups of animals in existence. Deer elk, moose, caribou antelope, sheep, goats, bison, boar, javelina and peccary are ungulates. Most of these animals are also ruminants, which are cud chewing animals having a stomach divided into four parts. The first chamber in an ungulates stomach is the rumen, which serves as a large fermentation tank full of bacteria and other microorganisms necessary to breakdown the partially chewed digestive matter. Fine digested matter moves from the rumen to the reticulum, which is the second compartment of the stomach. Vegetation that is too coarse to leave the rumen is regurgitated and chewed further to make it fine enough to pass through to the second chamber. After spending time browsing all ruminants will need to spend time at rest to chew their cud.

      A deer’s digestive system works non-stop twenty-four hours a day. A breakdown in this process for even a few hours can result in a potentially deadly situation for a ruminant. In order for a deer to continue the digestive process it is critical to maintain the microbial balance in the rumen. That is the primary reason that you will almost never find a ruminants stomach completely empty. Since most vegetation moves through a ruminant’s digestive track in 11-12 hours, deer need to eat about every six hours. The balance of the time is spent between chewing their cud and resting. This helps to explain why deer that feed at or before dawn are likely to feed again during the day. It also explains why the two major activity periods and the two minor periods work well in forecasting deer feeding activity

      Another group within General Game Animals is predators. This includes mountain lion, bobcat, lynx, coyote and fox. Predators are generally carnivores. A carnivore is an animal that is primarily a meat eater and as a result it will have a completely different gastro-intestinal system. Unlike ungulates (deer), the stomach of carnivores process food differently. Their stomachs have developed to withstand periods of great activity followed by long periods of inactivity. Although animals that are predators (carnivores) can be more flexible with their eating habits than herbivores, they generally are most active when their prey is more active. Therefore the times that deer and other ungulates are active is also the most active time for predators.

      Upland Game Birds include quail, pheasant, grouse, dove, turkey and other game birds, which eat a wide variety of things including insects, berries and seed. Birds have an extremely high metabolic rate and therefore must feed frequently and consume large quantities of food compared to their body weight. Although game birds can be found and hunted anywhere in their range, it is usually easier for a dog to locate the scent of these birds in their feeding areas. When in search of food birds will cover a large area depending on the quality and quantify of the food source. By covering this large area when feeding, game birds leave a much greater sent area than the same number of birds in a small area such as when they are roosting thereby making it more likely that a bird dog could locate at least some of the group.

      Game Fish species are carnivores and will eat a wide variety of foods. Most freshwater and inshore saltwater species subsist on insects, crustacean and other smaller fish while offshore salt water species thrive more frequently on crustacean and smaller fish. Fish are opportunistic feeders and will feed ravenously when hungry and food is readily available, but when full, they may totally ignore the food source. When the food source for game fish is abundant they may not respond as well to other influences. There is an extremely large number of different species of fish that are sought after in both fresh-water and salt-water. Weather and Wildlife charts rate the lunar and solar events that generally affect all fish. However, each species has certain specific habits and diet that requires specific knowledge and individual study in order to understand their feeding tendencies.

      There are many great sources of information available on the Internet for people who want to learn about the anatomy, habits, diet, reproduction and many other facts about various game animals and fish.