Morning vs. Evening Deer Hunts - Empirical data on success rate

[Maverick1]

Do you kill more deer at one end of the day than the other? Can you explain why? (i.e., Is your time spent in the woods biased to one end of the day or the other?)

Empirical data for all kills:

• AM: 40%
• PM: 60%

Data for firearm kills:

• AM: 43%
• PM: 57%

Data for archery kills:

• AM: 37%
• PM: 63%

There's always more to the data, though. The above doesn't take several things into account:

• First decade or so I hunted about the same amount in the morning and evening. Over the last decade I have hunted more evenings. (Just not a morning person!).
• My first several seasons, the mindset was "if it's brown, it's down" - and that has significantly changed over the years; I pass up a lot of deer now I would have shot before.
• So, given the above information, the above is only for deer I have killed, and does not reflect shot opportunities, number of deer sightings, number of large does/bucks, etc.

 

[boyne bowhunter]

Here's some empirical data from my log tallying deer sightings over the last 3 years. Personally I prefer hunting mornings, the wind is generally at it's stillest and there's just something about watching the world wake up. Last year I had 5 opportunities at bucks I wanted to shoot at, 2 n the morning and 3 in the afternoon (two clean misses, one not recovered, one tagged and one, while in range, never presented an open shot).

That said my personal success on the last 10 bucks I've shot has been exactly divided 50/50 over mornings and afternoons.