Time to Head out

I am a novice hunter. This is only my 2nd year Hunting which I have learned what I know from reading and videos. I have a question, is it true that during early season a deer hunter should wait until evening to go hunt? If so what is considered evening?

Welcome to our forum.Dee are crepuscular, active at morning & evening. One thing to note is to have extra light sources, for blood trailing during evening hunts. Defining evening is probably a bit subjective, everyone had their own opinion. The last 3 hours of daylight, in my mind, would be an evening hunt. Best of luck, keep us updated on your season.

Evenings can be great early in the season, but I have luck in the morning as well. The afternoon, evening hours are hunted more in the early season, as guys can get out after work, and also pattern deer on late summer feeding patterns early on. But if you have a good idea about food sources and bedding areas, early morning can be a great time to catch them working back to their beds. They will often hit oak drops on their way back to bed to get the acorns that fell while they were in the fields overnight, just like they hit them on the way to the fields in the evening. A good oak drop is a good oak drop, be it 6 in the evening or 8 in the morning.

Also, it doesn't hurt to keep an eye on the local deer herd. If deer in the area are seen moving frequently around 2 pm, get on stand around 1. Deer movement times vary with conditions, and local deer I see out and about during the day clue me to the best time to hunt over the next few days.

I hunted this morning with my kids for the Michigan Youth hunt, we saw 18 deer total in an area where the farthest you can see is about 50 yards in a few spots. And it is not near any farms or anything of that nature where you can basically "guarentee" seeing deer. I'm usually happy if I see 2 or 3 in a hunt. So all I can say is, in my mind it's not about hunting morning or evening, it's about how much time you put in. Your odds of seeing deer are exponentially greater when you spend as much time as you can in the woods.

Watch the weather, wind, barometer, etc. to pic your "best" days/times. I woke up at 5am this morning and it was raining with 30mph winds, almost didn't even bother waking up the kids. But then at 630 suddenly the rain stopped and the wind slowed to about 5mph so we went out. And what an awesome morning. After that wind & rain turned calm the deer were up and on the move. And had we not been in the woods this morning, well we would not have seen them.

So again, my advice is hunt whenever you have the chance, rain or shine, windy or calm, hot or cold, morning or evening or even mid-day. Too many guys I know are always making excuses NOT to go hunting. I go every single chance I can anytime I can.

So just to reiterate what I said yesterday, this morning my kids and I headed out to the pop-up for the second and last morning of the Michigan Liberty/Youth Hunt. Shortly after daylight we had 4 bucks come in together, a spike, a nice tall 4 point, a handsome 8 and one I couldn't quite make out. Unfortunately they skated thru pretty fast and the kiddos couldn't make a shot. But it just goes to show that morning hunts can be equally as good as evening hunts. What matters most is hunting when and where the deer are, which is in the woods at anytime.