Originally Posted by
mrl0004
I have noticed a steady enough trend that I am almost through hunting in the early morning. I never see deer on morning hunts, even when it's cold. On the hunts from mid-afternoon to dark, I have seen the most deer. In fact, every deer I ever shot was right before dark.
I know that in the morning they are heading to bed down or are out moving to keep warm if it's cold. Maybe it's due to the screwy weather here in Alabama that past couple of year, where it's warmer than it should be coupled with good acorn crops that keep them in the woods. Just curious if anyone has noticed a trend.
My prefered method of hunting mature bucks is to set up close to where they bed because they don't move far from bedding in daylight. What I have noticed over the years is most big bucks are bedded before legal shooting in the mornings (outside of the rut) So to combat this, I only hunt mornings when a moonphase or wether condition tells me that bucks will be arriving at the bed later than usual.