Archery Opener (AM or PM?)

[wallter]

What's best morning or evening for stand hunting? Is it worth sitting for the whole day or is the afternoon a waste? Thanks.

[Guest]

Ill hunt in the morning by thier bedding area and in the evening close to thier feeding are,with one not being any better than the other.One nice thing about the morning is that if you stick a deer you will have more time to let the deer lay and die before you track it without running out of daylight,and its easier to track by daylight instead of flashlight.Where I hunt in North Dakota you have to find your deer that night or in the morning you will not have a deer left as the coyotes will have had lunch.My vote -mornings. Once it gets closer to the rut,I will extend my time on the stand,and if im hunting a bedding area I will sit a little longer as the deer will sometimes mosey around for awhile before they bed down.

[midwesthunter]

I have a unique bottleneck that I hunt so I will be hunting the same area both morning and evening. Since this will be my only weekend to bowhunt this whole year ((Contact US Regarding This Word) COLLEGE) I am not too worried about burning out the spot.

[Powerstroke]

Deer are not gonna be moving much during the daytime if it continues to be in the 70-80 degrees.

MOrning probably best since it will be cooler, but evening is good too if you know the trail they're moving on.

[midwesthunter]

Hey Wallter, did you happen to go to Forest Lake High School?

[NWBuck]

Early in the bow season (first part of October here in Iowa) I believe it is very unproductive to hunt mornings. Deer, especially better bucks, aren't pushed by the rutting urge yet, and will be in their beds well before first light. All I seem to accomplish by hunting mornings early in the season is spooking deer. I take advantage of these mornings to do some fall fishing, duck/goose hunting, etc, and then hit the food sources for a PM sit if temps are less than 70 degrees. Later in the season, from late October through November, I'd sooner be in a morning stand...or perhaps all day. Good luck all!

[bigbucks]

I've shot 3 deer over the years on opening weekend. All have been in the morning under a white oak tree that was dropping acorns like crazy. 2 of those deer were a half hour apart & I definitely could have shot at least one more after that, they just couldn't leave those acorns alone. I've shot other deer the first week of the season, all in the evenings on alfalfa fields. I have had plenty of other opportunities that I've passed on under oaks in the evenings as well. I've had almost no luck hunting fields in the mornings in September.

[wallter]

No on FLHS? Grew up in St. Paul. What part of Forest Lake do you hunt? I live south of North Branch.

[wallter]

Big Bucks,

I'm curious about your oak tree success. Do you attribute it to good scouting, right place right time or would you call this a good morning strategy. In all maybe they both will produce. I just thought traditionally evenings were better. I'm not sure???

[bigbucks]

wallter,

I wouldn't so much call it good scouting, as experience. My cousin & I are the same age & started bowhunting within a couple of years of each other & grew up gun hunting together. No one told us that it should be better in the evening, or if they did we didn't listen. We just hunted whenever we could morning or evening & we found a certain oak tree that drew the deer like a magnet both morning & evening, but at one time at least it was better mornings than evenings, not sure why, maybe because thermals protect our scent better then, it's on top of a ridge.

We call the stand "killer". I've shot 6 deer out of it, technically one was under that tree prior to building the stand. I was on the ground having just left another stand near there. 5 of the 6 have been in the morning & I totally blew an opportunity one other time in the morning when I had 4 deer right under the stand. Interestingly enough my cousin has shot at least 4 deer from "killer" & all of his have been in the evening. Of course that has been my opening morning stand every year except maybe one from 97 on. He's shot another 4 or 5 from a stand about 35 yards away, they were probably half morning & half evening. I heard him shoot 3 of those, actually saw 2 of them from "killer". He heard me shoot 3 of my morning ones, actually only saw one of them. It's absolutely the best (& the worst) when you're sitting there quietly watching the woods & you hear, sphtt!, SMACK!!, followed by a deer crashing through the woods that you can often see. Let's just say that gets your heart pumping! He had to listen to that twice in the first half hour of the season one year & then about half an hour after that I got to as well. It was really hot too, probably 80 before noon. That's something we'll never forget, it's really a lot of fun to hunt within sight of somebody. I watched my brother-in-law miss two deer last year & get caught moving by two others. I could have shot one of them myself, but passed on it. One isn't video taping & one hunting, we both just hunt the same area where there's a big conglomeration of trails, if the wind's right. We've done this on at least four different stand sites on three different properties.

Sorry about the length, I'm getting pretty excited for season.

[midwesthunter]

I hunt about two miles east of the southest border of carlos avery. We got permission from a farmer to hunt his land. There are so many deer around there its rediculous. I have yet to see anything bigger than a small 8 pointer but since this will be my only weekend to bowhunt until mid december I won't be too picky on what I shoot.

[wallter]

Better yet, you found a place that deer like to go period. Well done. I to am jumping out of my skin with excitement. One piece I can add to my situation is to get to the stand I want to hunt, it's a long hike through some pretty heavy cover. I don't want to bump any deer making noise and such.

[bigbucks]

Go really early & try to avoid where you know they'll be. It's better to bump them in the dark walking in in the morning than in the in light walking in in the afternoon, by my way of thinking.

[wallter]

big bucks,

Thanks. I'm hoping I can take the first 7 letters of your moniker as I've only shot small bucks.

See my new post on favorite reads...

[Stratosman]

Morning or evening, well it depends on where your set-ups are. Meaning, a stand over an alfalfa field is probably somewhere you would only want to hunt in the evening, since there might be deer occupying the feild in the early morning and spooking them would be inevitable. On the other hand, a stand set a ways off the feild would be good either morning or evening, catching the deer moving to and from the feild. Look at your stand set-ups, think about deer movement and the best approaches to take to not spook deer.

Now as far as preference, I usually only hunt evenings because I prefer to duck hunt in the A.M. But I have shot deer in the mornings, I think only one though, an 11 pointer 2 years back. However during gun season, I would say that 75% of mine have been in the morining.

[wallter]

I'm basically set up closer to the bedding area than the feeding area. They bed in a swampy area and I'm on an oak hump (island) surrounded by lowland. My guess is it should be good for both. What do you think?

[Guest]

As mentioned above about the acorns,you cannot beat a great spot to hunt bucks if you can find a group of white oak trees with freshly dropped acorns,as deer love them.You never know when a buck could stop by to gobble up a bunch.Ive seen them in the acorns in the early afternoon and also late morning on thier way back to thier bedding area.For some reason,the acorns are dropping very early this year.

[Stratosman]

Sounds like a classic spot. If the oaks are dropping acorns it could be real good since it might be a pit stop on the way to or from the field. Watch the wind and only hunt if favorable to your set-up. Good luck

[bigbucks]

wallter,

Yeah, well it's my monniker, handle, whatever, that doesn't mean that I've shot a bunch either. Nothing more than decent I'd say, lots of small ones. Good luck to all, it's getting tough to wait now, but so many projects still to get done.

We built another permanent stand on Saturday & checked a couple of other permanents. Yesterday I hung my third portable of the season. I have a couple more that will go up when I decide to hunt one of a few places where I've got a spot picked out. My climber & my 12' ladder are the rotating ones that bounce around during the season. The 15' ladder will some too, but not as readily.