Me too. Beyond that though, unless you are still hunting them, if you are getting in to the woods and setting up as they are starting to move around, you are more likely to have “missed” them if you are setting up on a travel corridor, or bump them as they are moving if you know where they are bedding and you are setting up nearby, or you bump them well before dawn and they’ve had a chance to settle down a couple of hours later.
I say whatever works for you. Most of my success has been on my small rural residential property. Only been hunting it 4 seasons and 8 seasons of hunting total for me. Low 20s for number of deer between all those seasons.
I’ve killed two does mid-day. I’ve had and flubbed opportunities on a couple of nice bucks still hunting mid-day in greenridge. And bumped a large number of deer that I had no chance on unless I wanted to shoot them on the run, mid-day. And I’ve passed on a few deer mid-day.
About 70% of the deer I’ve killed have been in a late afternoon/evening sit (after 4pm) with most of those probably within an hour of sunset.
The 30% I’ve killed in the morning, about half were before sunrise. The other half were after sunrise and before 9am.
Now a bit of that is timing. Since I work from home the last few years and I can hunt my back/side yard, I sometimes get out there the moment I am done with work. I am not getting out there real early to hunt for an hour before starting work. So my time in the woods or the stand. Is less equally split. I probably have as many hours just doing 3pm to half an hour past sunset (or longer if I am treed in the dark by a bunch of deer I didn’t want to shoot who won’t leave) as I do pre-dawn till I kill a deer in the morning plus all day sits.
When I am out hunting public land. 75% have been late day harvests, 15% morning harvests, 10% mid-day harvests.
Just based on game camera photos, through my property, late summer through late October it is almost all early morning and evening movement. Very little between 8am and 5pm. November it is still heavier in early morning and evening, but a lot more daytime movement. Mid December through early February it is generally morning or at night. Though more daytime movement than early summer and early fall. Evening movement is rare. Like I might get some deer through before 8:30am in late December 6 days a week, 3-4 days a week someone(s) will come through after 8:30am and before 3pm, maybe twice a week someone comes through after 3pm and before last light. And 6-7 days a week deer coming through from around 7pm till 1am.
So for the morning around my property, it isn’t worthless to get in my stand at 8am, but 50/50 I’ve already missed the deer that are coming through or I’ll be busted because they bedded down nearby or if they are walking through as I am getting in my stand. A few times I’ve gotten in my stand 30-40 minutes before first light to find a deer bedded down 60-70yds away once it gets light enough to see. So far I’ve been busted zero times (that I have heard or seen) getting in my stand half an hour before first shooting light.
