Depends on several things. How far do you have to walk to get to your spot/stand? How many other hunters are in the area? What's the weather like? I like to beat everyone to the woods in hopes that they might push one to me early on. If it's overcast you usually have an addition 15 mins or so of dark but I personally don't let that factor in. I prefer to be in stand or in my spot at the very least 30 mintures before first daylight, so if I'm walking 15 minutes to my spot I leave 45mins to an hour before daylight. Tomorrow is opening day gun season in Illinois. The problem is everyone is the area hunts down where I'm hunting. Yet nobody likes to walk very far so I'm walking about 25 minutes and abput 2 miles back to most isolated area possible, so I plan on being in my spot about an hour before daylight. The cool thing is there is only one area the deer can pass through woods to avoid an open field and that's along a creek bed. From that creek bed that connects two large patches of woods the next closest patch of woods is on the other side of the road in both directions. Those roads are easily a mile and half away. I like my chances of getting some deer pushed to me if I can beat everyone to the woods.