Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Time on stand

Assuming you hunt out of a tree or in a blind, how long do you typically stay on stand? Wondering what percentage sit all day and for those who don't, what time they call it in the morning and what time they go back out in the afternoon.

For the first couple days of the season, I stay from can't see to can't see. Lunch in the woods, etc. after a couple days when most hunters have left, I stay from dark until 1100 or so, then back out at 1400 until dark. Can't see deer from the cabin.

I'm ADD as hell so if I can sit for 2 hours it's half a miracle. As soon as I hear shots I start wondering who shot, what did they get, do they need help with it etc. I'm also deaf in my left ear so I can't tell where the shots come from so I can't locate the direction of the shots anyway. I'm better off still hunting the ledges and sitting for short periods.

When I did I sat all day, unless I moved to change spots, sitting one place AM and another PM.

I normally go in before light and stay until legal shooting time has past. I take a peperoni rool for lunch. One of my friends said my son and I were vampires because we were only seen in the dark.

To add to my original question. For those of you that sit all day, who often have you seen deer moving between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm? I know you can't see deer unless your out there but I'm interested in how much they are moving during this time frame. I'm sure it goes up during different phases as well. Is it a complete waste of time to hunt those time frames pre-rut?

I will often sit 4 or so hours in the early season, In the mid and late season (say mid November and later)I will sit from before dawn to after dark if schedule allows.

More of the time in the late season deer detection is visual, not audible and I will listen to audiobooks with a headset while sitting. It certainly helps time go by.

I have seen and shot lots of deer midday and I believe its especially productive when there is a bright moon during the middle of the night.

I always stay out all day. If bowhunting, I will sit on a stand until about 10 am. Then I may get down and walk around/eat/nap for a couple hours. Then around noon I get back up in the stand until about 2. Down to walk and stretch, up again about 3:30 or 4. I have seen some of the biggest bucks of my life moving from noon to 2 during moderate hunting pressure.

First farm. Sit from before light to about 9-10am. Then breakfast in town, or cabin. Then a second farm for a deer drive. Then lunch. Then first farm again from @3 till can't see. Then dinner in town. Pool games. A few beers. Maybe a football game. Then back yo the cabin for poker, until lights out.
I too use audio books. Solar panel for power, and a propane heater if i am blind hunting. Most of the time, though, I'm 20' up in a climber. (Roofed, and skirted if needed.

Except during the rut. Bucks are primarily nocturnal. They will scent check from fownwind of any does they spot. The minor downwind trail will mark his passage. Find his bedding, and you can trail him from there, too. Bedding areas are easy to sex by the plumbing.

Fortunately we can. ANd have killed deer from teh cabin or very close...Can see and kill em from our house too. Done that too.

But I"m OT...

I'm not so mad at em... could care less if I kill a big one ever again. I enjoy camp, camp life and the hunting. We hunt till 9 or 10 maybe, out by 4pm till dark again. Some days more, some less. Some we sleep in, or stay in camp to watch the bbq for the rest of the folks.

Of course the fact we can get into the stand withotu deer seeing us at the lease means we can come and go to the blind as we please.

OTOH I've been out all day long after a bull moose.. more than once. Same with elk. Same with deer actually. But in my younger days...

Seeing deer during mid day varies with weather, hunting pressure, and food source. I do usually see deer mid day but how frequently varies.

I hunt from tree stands from dark to 9:00 or 10:00. Then from about 2:00 or 3:00 until dark. If it's during the rut, I might spend more time out there if I'm not working or something stupid like that. I generally take off work for the first week of gun season (after Thanksgiving), but still pretty much follow that schedule. If I'm successful, I can cut meat in the middle of the day.

I've seen quite a few in that time frame, early in the season when hunters are moving and pushing deer around. Shot a cuple during that time frame, too. After that calms down, I don't see them often. I figure it's a combination of fewer hunters, and deer going nocturnal. That's why I tend to go in for lunch after the first few days.

Mornings 1 hour before sunrise until 11

AFternoon 1pm until odark one thirty or until I cannot see my hands in front of my face

well depending on wind conditions sometimes not possible to stay in a stand all day but i have seen plenty of bucks between 11 and 2 pm

I sit all day in the climber and never come back in till it's dark. I have shot the majority of my best bucks between 11AM and 1PM. The group I hunt with in Illinois usually start getting antsy around 9AM and go back to camp around 10AM to 1PM, then go back out for the evening hunt.

One of my friends started sitting all day like me a few years ago and he has also shot some real nice bucks during that same time window. I think between the two of us we have taken four eight pointers, a 10 pointer, and a 12 pointer in that two hour window.

I enjoy sitting in camp when my deer is hanging. If not, it's just wasted time to me with what few days there are.

Not often, to 2nd question, which is why I said "when I did sit", because I don't anymore, except for the first day here in PA I sit all day because of so many hunters and there is always someone moving somewhere nearby that might move a deer past me. After the first day I sir maybe 2-3 hrs in AM and 1 hr PM and still hunt in between.

Great clarification there... if our season was a few days, rather than more or less Oct 1-almost February, it would be the same.

Funny here, I"ve rarely seen much of anything mid day, unless the rut is involved. When thats going on I'm very likely to sit all day if its active. I've never shot a deer mid day. Though I've seen some.

If rut is going hard you better be there from can't see till can't see. If you have a good spot chances are good you won't be there that long if you like any of the bucks that come by.

for the first couple days of rifle season i usually sit all day at one spot and let the impatient and hungry guys push them around. i have gotten most of my post-rut deer from 10-2 during this time. after that i typically hunt a rotation method. i try to have several stands set up that i will spend several hours at each with the last one being closest to the truck.