The best hunting hrs.

[elkaholic]

We all know getting into your stand a good 1/2 hr before daylight
We all know we should stay in your stand till you can't see to shoot.

Of course shooting only during legal hrs.

I guess I'm asking if anyone has any good luck on a midday hunt

Not that I believe or use a lunar chart to determine my hunts. But the next 3 days show best days to hunt and best times are from like 11 to 2 each day.

So far the latest I've seen deer moving is like 9 am. Mainly because by 10 I'm done. As I've usually been in the stand for 4 to 5 hrs already.

Evenings get to stand by 4 and sit to dark. Best action last hr..

Do you midday hunt?

[longbow joe]

During the rut here nov.6th till about the 14th l have shot 2 of my bigger bucks at noon yes there is usually a 10 am lull but if it's cold and windy the deer are very active and there is activity all day .
I have a new way of hunting the rut the last 4 years l get in stand all refreshed at 11 am and stay till dark instead of a morning and evening Break up
It might not be for everyone but it works for me.
I have had a lot of evening success over the years it's personal but evening hunts have always been good to me especially hunting the less presured deer.
During extreme cold the 11am to dark is also a bit warmer.
My only exception is when an overnight cold snap comes during the rut then I'm in for early morning
Hunting thats just common sense.
I literally pay no attention to the moon phase anymore
The deer live in the woods and you have to be there to have success.
If a big buck gets spooked by a dog or another hunter and luckily cones your way lt does not care about the moon phase
I hunt near a tidal river l love the duck hunters they are really good at spooking the deer towards me that has nothing to do with a moon phase either.
If l go out and it's a bad inactive deer night l just brush it off and become more persistent that's how l see it.
I do believe that the moon effects the deer and have seen it but it's not important to me.

[TPM]

Shot my biggest buck ever at 1:30 in the afternoon.

[grouse]

During firearm season I usually go out at mid day if I haven't killed a deer in the morning. Deer seem to be moving all day then and I've killed several deer at mid day with a rifle. I have never tried mid day hunting with a crossbow.

[AJ01]

Research has actually shown that the greatest percentage of LARGE MATURE Whitetail Bucks are killed between 9:30AM and Noon!
That pretty much goes against everything we have been taught and heard, over the years. However, numbers don't lie. Folks who study Whitetails will tell you that a Mature Buck will usually get up and feed and drink 5 times a day on average. That means he'll leave his bedding area and go munch!! Kinda like us watching a football game!!
If you are hunting his "core area", you'll get a try IF You hang out there long enough!!

And you don't have to sit ALL day!! I've gone into stands between 8-8:30 only to kill a nice mature buck later that morning.

This particular Buck was killed in Central Texas. right at the Bosque and McLennan County line. Shot with a vertical bow at 22 yards. Middle of November, the 16th to exact. Time of day...11:40ish AM!! I didn't hit this property until almost 9AM!!!

(And yes I know....ALL my hair is GRAY now!!)



I'm playing games with a mainframe 8 that has a 6 inch drop off his left beam, as you read this. Hopefully the game of "Cat and Mouse" will play out in my favor. Only time will tell. This will make my second year of hunting this one particular buck.

Yes, I know a lot of folks don't have that luxury. They hunt "public land" which make it tough to target a specific Buck.
Yes, I understand limited time to hunt.
I also understand low deer numbers, hunting pressure and poor habitat.

That's why YOU as the hunter need to learn everything you can about your quarry. I remember getting ready to go to Alaska for the 1st time back in the 80's. Drove my wife nuts reading about ALaska and Caribou!! I'm pretty sure she was ready to shoot me before I left!!

I KNOW I'm a Blessed fellow. I've hunted a lot of places for a lot of different animals. Been hunting since I was 8 or 9 years old. I'm 60 PLUS now. Hopefully the Good Lord will allow me a few more precious days in the field before He punches my ticket.
I learn something new ALL the time. Try to anyways.

Deer move all the time. Especially when it's COLD. They are just like you and I. Gotta have fuel to keep the fire burning. I know a lot of folks if they haven't seen a Deer by 8am, they are back at the house complaining about "no deer" by 8:30am.
Don't be that hunter!!
After all, I've never seen a mature Buck killed in front of a television!!

just the ramblings of an Old East Texas Redneck.

[artifact]

Not so much archery, where I have seen plenty of deer feeding in the afternoon over the years, but during gun season two prime times are app. 9:00-9:30 and 12:00-12:30, reason being guys are getting cold and heading back to their vehicles to either call it a day, or chow down and warm up and then walk back to their spots or another spot, they often move deer!

[DuckHunt]

I track details about all deer I've ever harvested and midday has never been special to me. I call midday from 10am-3pm. I've taken five bucks over the years during that time, one was a mature 7pt and the others were all smaller.

If I set the bar at 8pt or larger, I've killed one more in the morning than the evening so its practically a draw for me.

But if I set the bar at 9pt or larger, I've taken six of them in the morning and only one in the afternoon. Oddly enough, that one in the afternoon was my largest, an 11pt.

My results are likely more relative to my particular hunting area and the deer movement relative to that terrain, food and bedding situation. And during the 2nd week of November around here you never know what you'll see or when.

[elkaholic]

Great info.

Sat from 10 to 3. , best lunar deer action,best day

ZIPPO.- NADA -NOTHIN

Going out now for morning.

[artifact]

There are guys in our area that swear the best hunting hours are anytime after dark!!! Sad but true!

[elkaholic]

Sat 6 to 10.

Getting ready to leave, moving around in tripod. Snort at about 60. Go figure 8 ptr. bounds away. I swore I checked every direction twice .

Sit another hr. , see nothing . 1/2 way down ladder. Snort. Again.

Couldn't get it right this am.

[longbow joe]

There is practically no bad time to be out in the woods it's all good!
You tend to do some serious thinking in a treestand....some good some bad....lol. but it's kinda like my real church
I have successfully raised my two girls and had a buisness for almost 40 years I'm rich by no means but if l won a million dollars tonight l would be down my embankment or hunting in my mosquitoe infested swamp because when I'm in my stand "l am rich already " and that's the truth!!!!

[xcaliber]

Hunting public land for years, the nicer bucks were taken after after the morning rush headed back to their trucks around 9:30 am to Noon. At the lease we have now we border a public hunting lands to the east of us, and it gets hot around an hour after day break. Could be the forced movement from the hunters over there, or just their normal routine since there are only a few of us hunting this place. We do sit on stand a pretty good amount of time, and bring in eats & water. During the rut, anytime you can be out is good, but late season I think the afternoon sits are best for buck hunting.

[ihunt]

My best hunting hours are late afternoon. Used to hunt early morning but unless I enter the woods before 2am, which is not going to happen lol, I found that I was scaring off the deer as they were roaming around. Then I started hunting the afternoons, entered the woods around 1pm then couple of hours later around 3:30 thats when the deer starts moving around, the bucks action I find is always the last hour of legal shooting time. Since I been using trail cams the last few years it confirmed what I suspected that the deer are out and about between 2am till 6:30am and 3:00pm till 9:00pm. Btw all of my harvested deer have been killed around the last half hour of legal shooting times.