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.

Same here, kind of depending on how many guys are at the club and where they're hunting. Most of them come down around 11 and go back up about 2 and they make a God awful racket in the process.

When it's not crowded I'll still hunt from stand to stand.

My place is so private now that it don't matter but when I hunted around others I used to love to take advantage of the "cant sit" crowd, they make it so easy.

When I hunted in Pa. The first day, I sat all day.. Sometimes the second day also.. Then morning and evening hunts, except for the two Sat. s of season.. If I do not have a buck, they were all day affairs..

When my wife joined me in retirement we spent 55 days at the deer camp. Pre rut in south Texas starts just after thanksgiving. That's when it starts getting serious. Rut gets into full swing around the 10 th of December. Depending on what the deer are doing and the moon and weather determines how much time I spend in the field. General season starts first of November till middle of January. Hasbeen

Kill most of my deer between 10 am and 2 pm, on stand, still hunting.......larger areas of no ag, to small spots along ag.
Ridiculously heavy pressure or very light.

Long sits right before gun, and the gun opener.

Why I don't hit it hard in early season, too easy to get burned out.

Dark till Dark

Evening for a couple hours. Rest of the time depends on what the Deer are doing and weather. If the Deer are not moving, makes little sense to also be holed up. 5 hunters on a 1200 acre lease-and middle week most times less-Deer mostly do what Deer do normally and are not spooky from being pushed. Fun times to go and find them.

Hi,

I just bought a Sako 85 Hunter .300 win mag, and would like to purchase a Nightforce 5.5x22x56 NXS velocity 1000. Any idea on the model of the scope I should use HVM, CVM, etc. They say to make sure you order the right one for your gun, but not sure which is the right one.

I always still hunt, moving slowly and letting them give themselves up. The areas I hunt are a lot different than most areas down south though. I actually sat for a couple of hours today but I didn't see anything move through where I was sitting. I got up and hiked around a little bit and actually shot a buck as it was walking up to where I was sitting before. Two wheelers went by me and on their return they also got a buck about 150yds away from where I was on the other side of the ridge. Go figure. The wind had died down and I think the bucks were up and moving around. I saw another one on the way back but on a 2 mile hike with a full pack, I will go back for him!

My routine is about the same throughout season. I try to be up in the stand a half-hour before legal hunting and I stay until 1030-1100, and then I'm back out in the afternoon with about 3 hours of hunting before end of legal hunting.

For the Rifle Opener in KY, that equates to:
Morning: 0615 to 1100 Afternoon: 1500 to 1750

My reasons for a 4-hour hiatus at midday are:

1) As the patriarch of deer camp, I have responsibilities.
2) Although I seldom hunted all day, I'm 58 now. It's good to get in and give myself a break.
3) I change clothing, rifles, and gear, because I usually change venues from morning to afternoon.

What I can tell you from analysis of our log is that:

The 0800-0900 block sees the most deer killed, followed by the 0900-1000 hour. Third is the last hour of daylight. We have recorded only 7 kills between 1100 and 1700 in 15 years. Surprisingly, we've only recorded 4 kills before 0800 in that same time frame, but 3 of the 4 were our biggest bucks.

Another thing I can tell you is that my neighbors, voting with their rifles concur. During the peak activity there may be 3 shot-strings per minute. From 1100 to 1700 there are maybe 3 per hour.

I sit as long as I can stand it. If the stand is uncomfortable, I may get down about 10 or 11 to stretch a bit and eat, then climb back up. Last year, I got down after a few does went by on my blind side and was taking a whiz, when a latecomer trotted up and volunteered for the freezer at less than 50 feet.

This year, I'm hunting on private land and invested in a nice 2-man ladder with a comfy seat and padded rail. The spot it's in is so sweet, I may invest in a pee bottle so I can stay longer without stinking the area up (on public land, there's so much urine spread around, I don't worry about it). My son saw four bucks there yesterday, out of bow range naturally.

ML season in two weeks!

Short answer, depends.

During the rut and our 9 Day gun season or during the rut in bow season I sit dark to dark.

Pre-rut and late season archery I'll go as conditions and deer patterns dictate.

The longer you're in the woods, the shorter the time to when you will kill a buck.

Opening Day, I'm in position an hour before shooting time and stay all day. I eat in the field and may even take a nap during mid afternoon.

2nd day varies. I have repeated the "Opening Day" tactics or depending on weather and pressure. I may only hunt the evening which I try to be in the field by 3p.m. and hunt til dark.

After opening day, the odds of success decrease substantially in my experience.

After opening day, the odds of success decrease substantially in my experience.


Agreed, especially on public land. The plot I've been hunting since 2012 becomes devoid of whitetails after about the second day. I suspect they walk across the Shenandoah to the private property on the other side. Last year, after killing a doe on the second day, I hit it pretty hard for the remainder of the season and saw not a hair.

Bow -

Dark to about 1200, then 1400 to dark

Rifle -

Week 1 - dark/dark
Week 2 - dark/cold and then about 1400/dark

I tend to see a lot of deer 1100-1400 that first week of rifle as I assume others are going in and moving the deer around.