Surely there is no correct answer to this question as it depends on so many different variables.

One aspect that I haven' t seen mentioned is the placement of your treestand relative to the deer' s anticipated actions. Do you hunt near bedding areas - which implies that it is very hard to get into your stand in the afternoon without spooking deer. Do you hunt near feeding areas? This makes it more difficult to approach in the mornings as the deer are typically active in these areas. If the deer know that you are in the area - they will run away or be very, very cautious as they approach.

I know a lot of deer hunters in this area and they seem to fall into two different camps - those who drive their trucks around glassing for deer (always in the afternoons after work) and those who prefer to go into the woods and find out where the deer are bedded. Those who glass for deer in the afternoon are finding areas where the deer are feeding in the afternoon - and they prefer / swear by afternoon hunting. Those who walk the woods and find where the deer are bedding and hanging out during the day almost always prefer to hunt in the mornings.

With all that being said - in my area I prefer to hunt in the morning because everyone else seems to prefer hunting in the afternoon. A lot of these people have to work until 4 (though they usually slip out a little early) and then they all collectively seem to think that they can slip out into the woods for a quick hour of hunting. After several times seeing large deer run away from an approaching hunter I would much rather be in the woods when no one else is around. For that particular reason - most of my successful stand sites are very close to historical bedding areas and I hunt (probably) 75% of the time in the mornings.

I also have to agree with an earlier post - hunting near a bedding area in the morning during rut is unbeatable. Even if there are not deer active in that area on this particular morning - large bucks may come in to the area to see if there are does bedded there. In our area, this buck activity seems to occur around 11 - 12 in the morning - a time period when most of the hunters are not in the field (think the mature bucks realize this?).