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What's your favorite time of day to hunt early season?


Jeff13

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I have a decent seven coming morning (velvet) but normally in the mornings I see does but I saw 2 shooters one morning during early October closest they got were 60 but during late october and first 2 weekends in November that 3-4 pm was the ticket for bucks

Was hunting WI

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Ag effects AM movement, one farm we stricly hunt mornings early season cuz its all Timber and a different farm we only hunt afternoon cuz it has crop fields that border it. Impossible not to spook deer if u hunt am.... I've personslly never tagged a buck before noon.

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I hunt farm country in Southern MN. I usually see more bucks in the late afternoon during the early season.

By mid-late October, it is the complete opposite and the morning hours are by far better for me as long as I can get in un-noticed.

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Ag effects AM movement, one farm we stricly hunt mornings early season cuz its all Timber and a different farm we only hunt afternoon cuz it has crop fields that border it. Impossible not to spook deer if u hunt am.... I've personslly never tagged a buck before noon.

Ive never personally tagged a buck AFTER noon.... grin But I have seen some great deer on field edges in the evenings!

My theory has always been on mature bucks, the odds are better that he will be late to bed rather than early to rise.

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My hunting land is much different than most people's in that it's only 5 acres and it's in amongst many 5-10 acre wooded lots with houses. It's not suburban but it's also not big woods. I have only seen 5 bucks before Oct 24th in 8 years of hunting it. If I was a hunter who only hunted for big bucks, I wouldn't even touch a stand until the last two weeks of October, day or night. However, since I love being on the stand and need does to fill the freezer I do hunt early season and it's a mix of morning and night, depending on what the schedule allows. Evenings have produced more does than mornings for me so those are likely my preference.

When I did hunt larger woods with ag fields around it I concentrated mostly on evenings. I had my stands set about 100 yards back from field edges and those were much easier to get into at night than in the morning. I simply bumped too many deer in the morning.

Moving DST back a few weeks has also crimped my style. Prior to that I could hunt a few hours in the morning before going to work but now that's almost impossible.

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My afternoon evening schedules are packed with kid activities so for the most part I can hunt mornings. I have a few spots that I can sneak into sideways of where I expect the deer to come from and travel to. I love the cool morning air. I won't go evenings if it is too warm. I have enough spots that I will rotate stands. I have cameras out and will check the cards next week and go from there.

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I've shot two really nice bucks with my bow. The one in my avatar was early evening in 80+ degree early October weather. Shot on a 13 acre piece of wooded, backyard behind the houses, piece of property. The 11 pointer I shot the year before was in the center of the section backwoods where 4 farms meet in the morning the first Friday in November.

Most of the good bucks I've ever seen while hunting have been morning at rut time. The few early season ones were in the evenings.

About the only good early season morning spots I've ever had were transitional spots in the woods where they hit acorns after sunup or pass through funnels back to bed cover. They're primarily does & fawns, with a few small bucks mixed in.

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I realized I answered the question wrong. My FAVORITE time to hunt early season is morning, as it's cooler, but not cold. If you shoot one you have great light to track in. My most PRODUCTIVE time to hunt early season is evenings...

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