My experience with nocturnal bucks is if the place your hunting has any pressure on it they tend to go nocturnal until cold weather and the rut hits. So pressure and weather play the biggest factor I think. So basically just wait for them to start moving. I don’t think there is anything you can do directly to get them to move. I think if you stay out of the area and prepare long before the October lull and before your season starts you can catch them moving in daylight hours. Currently, most people are still having the same issue with bucks moving at dark. They don’t call it the October lull for nothing! It’s a norm for us experienced bow hunters. Where you hunt also plays a factor in deer time activity this time during the year. In Texas majority of hunters use feeders…not all but most because we don’t have the food source like the Midwest. I haven’t hunted yet on my farm here. I go out there just to check feeders and hang cameras and that’s it. By looking at the cards more bucks are starting to move with this colder weather, but up till now most of my mature bucks on camera are night time pictures. I also hunt in Kansas each year and found out that the big boys really escalate their night time movement during mid to late September to most of October till that cold front gets them on their feet. So basically if they feel safe and the weather is not brutally hot, they will move some during daylight. The bucks that I see moving now are just minutes before its dark or right at daybreak. I burned my tag in Kansas on a Milo field this year Oct 13. I was down there mainly to hang a few more stands, check cameras, and knock the cob webs off anything else needing done before my main week of hunting November 3rd thru the 11th. I would hunt the edges of crop fields to decrease my presence in the area. To my surprise 700pm last evening of my 6 day trip a mature 9pnt stepped out on the edge over a scrape. I just knew I wouldn’t tag out this early in the year with high hopes of the rut, but I did. This place has little pressure if any all year long and this was the first mature deer I saw during daylight hours besides the times during the summer when they were in the bachlor groups. Hope this helps.
Last edited by Hoyt21; 10-21-2013 at 10:14 PM.