Several good answers here, except for Crokit, who provided no insight whatsoever.
One problem we have when we try to figure out the time of day when deer will move, is tht we talk about it in terms of a watch, abd deer don't have a watch. THey can't tell tme. What they can do is tell how much light it out there, which you allude to in your question about shortneing hours of daylight.
If we think about der activiyt in relation to how many hours from sunries or sunset, we have a better way ofthinking baout it, and a better way of talking about it.
So, throughout the year, deer, in general, are most active, withing 2 hours of sunrise and sunset. And although some animals will move at approximately the same time (whithing about a half hour) some weeks, there are far too many variables to predict when a particulra deer will be at a particular spot - except on a semi-regular basis.
One of the variables that wil cause the bigest change, partiularly with bucks, is the rut, whicn often causes them to move earlier in the evening, and latrer in th morning than normal. Plus, bucks will often move from summer to fall, so that buck may not even be there come October 15 or so. It could be there, or it could be miles away, which is why you have to scout, or watch your cameras, at least a couple of times per week - to figure out where - and when - they are moving.
Obviously the hunting season will change when, and even where bucks move. THey oftem move after dark, which means you hve to pattern them, to find out where their daytime core area is, so you can get close to it, to hunt them, during daylight or legal hunting hours.
If there is extreme weater, too hot, too cold, too windy, too wet, they may not move at the samae tme, or even in the same place.
The only thin you can partially count on, is that during daylight hours, from about 10AM to 3-3 PM, they will be in their daytime core areas, which I shwy I keeptelling people to locate their core areas, because that is where every deer spends the most amount of time during the day.
I hope that helped. If you have quesitons feel fre to PM or e-mail me at
[email protected].
God bless and good hunting,
T.R.