humblehunter22
Senior Member
Touching base to see what the consensus is concerning hunting the mornings vs evenings in the early part of the season. Last year for me was by far my best season to date being able to finally get that danged ole monkey off my back and ended up dropping my 2 best bucks to date in my time of hunting. That being said I am looking to expand on that fortune and focus even more on consistency and the "productivity" of my hunts in terms of encounters/sightings while in the stand. It has been my frequent experience that no matter how early I attempt to go into the woods to set up or what I did strategy wise to avoid blowing the woods out for morning hunts it just has always been unavoidable no matter what especially during early season the agonizing sound of hoofs stomping the ground and blowing in all directions. I used to think that oh well it is what it is and would generally try to wait them out once I spooked them before resuming my trek into the woods to where I would eventually set up but even still after they seemed to wander off and disappear I would just about always have them come right back around before sunrise and seemingly peg me down in the tree I was in and proceed to blow and stomp for minutes on end to be sure to sound the "alarm" to notify the "others" in the area of the danger that was present. So my experience at least has been during the early season in the mornings at least for me have been all but spent watching silent empty woods and enjoying the warm temps with nothing to show. This season however I am looking to do the opposite of that and if it means fighting the itching temptation to go into the woods before sunrise and instead delay my approach until either mid day or afternoon so be it my aim is to increase my potential encounters and possible shot opportunities. I understand that it is not the end of the world if you "spook" deer and they are very likely to return later on or others will possibly come through an area but for me personally it seems that for my morning hunts I end up wasting more time and losing sleep than being productive on the stand. So my question is for those of you that religiously hit it hard in the heat of the early season when does it seem to be more productive for you morning or evening and if in the evening what is a general time frame that seems to be optimal to plan on being in the woods around?