As the old saying goes, it happens once in a blue moon.

Well. Guess what? That’s exactly what’s going to occur in the coming weeks.

If you’ve been putting off doing something you know needs to get done, you’ve been had. Once in a blue moon is here, almost anyway.

In a heavenly rarity, there are two full moons in a single month on the calendar for October. Two. Blue moons are not common, hence the saying “once in a blue moon.” But they are not unheard of either, happening every two or three years. As recently as 2018 there were two blue moons only two months apart, very rare. That won’t happen again until 2037.

The first full moon in October is the Hunter’s Moon. The blue moon, or moon without a nifty name, is set to happen on, of all things, Halloween. Eerie huh?

The Farmer’s Almanac says that hasn’t happened in North Dakota since 2001 or across all time zones in the U.S. since 1944. But there’s much more going on here than meets the eye, assuming there’s minimal cloud cover on Oct. 1 and 31.

To a fisherman, especially muskie fishermen, fishing during the time of a full moon is an absolute must. It is then, and only then, that monstrous muskies and other fish of all species make as fast a swim as possible for an angler’s presentation and clamp down and won’t let go. Really.

The Oct. 1 full moon arrives at 4:05 p.m., meaning fishermen everywhere will be ducking out of work early, calling in sick or otherwise becoming elusive when they should be picking up kids from school, daycare and the like.

Parental responsibility and work ethic will take another hit on Oct. 31 when the blue moon arrives at 9:49 p.m., smack dab in the middle of prime trick-or-treat time. Naturally, as every dedicated fisherman knows, you have to be on the water before the moon gets full.

There just might be a lot of little ghosts and goblins doing their trick-or-treating near a boat ramp with dear old dad watching over them, electric motor remote in hand, especially if the weather isn’t nasty cold. They’ll get home very late too. Good thing the Halloween blue moon isn’t on a school night.