Over the past season I've had a number of conversations with whitetail hunters in my fish & game club about whether they have more success being in the stand before daylight & hunting the early morning, or getting in the stand in the afternoon and hunting until the end of legal hunting hours. I have received conflicting answers ... some tell me they see more deer and have higher success when they get into position before daybreak. Others tell me they have equal success with hunts in the morning and hunts in the evening.
When I take a hard look at my 4 decades of deer hunting, my success rate has always been better on morning hunts than on evening hunts. I'm more of a night-owl than a morning person, and I don't like getting up super early to be in position an hour or two before daybreak, so I've spent more time on afternoon/evening hunts than morning hunts. But most of my deer hunting success (both in sightings and in kills) has been on morning hunts ... so my limited data set tells me I need to put more energy into morning hunts and less into evening hunts. But it's a limit data set, based on my hunting and my style. I'm interested in everyone else's experiences, and seeing if the majority has a success rate biased more toward the start or the end of daylight.
When you look back at your time in the woods during deer season, what has been your experience? Do you see more deer at one end of the day than the other? 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?)
When I take a hard look at my 4 decades of deer hunting, my success rate has always been better on morning hunts than on evening hunts. I'm more of a night-owl than a morning person, and I don't like getting up super early to be in position an hour or two before daybreak, so I've spent more time on afternoon/evening hunts than morning hunts. But most of my deer hunting success (both in sightings and in kills) has been on morning hunts ... so my limited data set tells me I need to put more energy into morning hunts and less into evening hunts. But it's a limit data set, based on my hunting and my style. I'm interested in everyone else's experiences, and seeing if the majority has a success rate biased more toward the start or the end of daylight.
When you look back at your time in the woods during deer season, what has been your experience? Do you see more deer at one end of the day than the other? 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?)