Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Morning or evening hunts??

I LOVE hearing and seeing the woods wake up. So morning for me. But mid day 10-2 has been my most productive by far.

I stay in the woods all day, I've taken more deer in the morning but the last several years evenings have been productive too. I used to come out of the woods for lunch and a nap, but now pack a lunch and have seen many deer moving during mid-day.

I have had equal success. I prefer cleaning deer in daylight and wish I could shoot in the.morning. The thing I like about PM hunts is the closer to the end of the hunt the better the odds. In the morning after 10 It seems like a waste of time.

I prefer being out in the morning and I prefer dealing with dead deer in the daylight. That said, I’ve probably killed as many big bucks evenings and midday as in the mornings. If I hunt late, until dark It’s always from an elevated stand where I only have close range opportunities and I generally use my .45-70 which tends to leave a very good blood trail

It depends on what’s happening.

I start the season with morning hunts and usually see enough game to keep me interested. But after a while, morning hunts quit producing and I switch to afternoon.

That happened this year. I passed easy shots on four different young bucks, while looking for something bigger.
I switched to afternoon and by 3:00 was seeing a number of deer starting to move. I killed a good buck an hour before dark.

Hunting pressure, weather and moon faze seem to be the factors that guide the deer movement.

+2

With a few exceptions, I've killed the majority of my better bucks between 10AM and 2pm.

If I’m getting some freezer pleasers….

Evening.

During the Rut i like mornings.

I’ve seen more bucks in the first half they day then evenings….

I’ll sit longer also.

Maybe til 11 or so.

Then gotta go to Bumpers and get a hamburger and onion rings.

If I don't have to work the following day then it's easy for me, evenings.
Not that I don't like morning hunts as well.

Anytime

I kill most of mine 10am - noon. Takes an hour to hike in. Hunt a few hours. Kill one. Hour to bone out. Hour or so back to truck. It gets dark at 430 now so you can’t do too much screwing around. I always like to leave a few hour buffer in case I get turned around or hurt.

I have no idea if I've killed more in the morning or afternoon. Probably about equal. I typically only hunt for 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a time. My problem is my work schedule Mon thru Sat morning. I'll scoot out of here early on Fridays around 2:00 and I can be in a stand by 3:00. Hunt for a couple of hours Sat. morning and then go to work late. Then I can go Sat night and Sun. morning. Got home stuff to do or deer to cut up in between.

The mornings are really nice, but I have to get my ass out of bed and go, even if it's raining or something. It is a lot less worrisome about tracking if need be. It's also a lot easier when gutting it in the daylight.

I refer to the last hour of daylight in the evening as "Happy Hour". The majority of my deer taken in the afternoon is during Happy Hour. Shot a small 8 point Saturday night at dark thirty. Luckily he went down right away. If it was a little lighter out, I might have let him walk because there are some bigger guys hanging around. It was a little hard to see what I had.

It depends what I am hunting. I should say what I hunted because I am now physically limited.

Elk......I prefer to hunt alone, still hunting and smelling animals before I see them. Use to walk up hill for about two hours in the dark to get on a north-south ridge where the wind came from the west. When shooting time came I would still hunt north on the east side just down from the crest. Blowing snow was my favorite time to get close to good bulls after smelling them. Several were taken under 40 yards.

Mule deer ......almost the same as hunting elk.

Whitetail........Last hour of legal shooting time.

I typically hunt evenings. I work too much

O typically like mornings better. But killed the better bucks in the midway 11-2.