Nocturnal Deer????
 

How ya'll doing out there? I just joined a club for the first time in ten or more years, been huntn a lot of public land. I have been talking to a lot of folks in the club and around the area and they claim big storys, seen good signs, and alot of nice pics. Problem is all photos have been between 12 am and 2 am. They do a lot of feeding on this lease last year there were very few nice bucks taken. Do you think it could be over feeding thats pushed them to only move at night? Any suggestions on how to hunt a area like that? Thanks for any ideas and help.

Yes, I think this may be happening. In our area people bait a lot and this same thing seemed to be happeing last year. Your best bet might be to hunt pre-rut and most of these people will not be feeding so much yet.

I have heard so many thoughts on Nocturnal deer and how they get that way. If it is a club like the club's I know of there is a lot of time spent in stands, maybe over hunting. I think that pressure make them go that way or appear to be that way. Just a thought from one hunter to another.

No such thing as a nocturnal deer... I do believe they will move shorter distances in daylight when bait is added to the scenario though..
I would stick to hunting close to the buck bedding areas. I do most of my hunting on heavy hunted public land. But I do occasionally hunt leases and private. I have seen a lot of mature bucks move around near there bedding. One thing that really stands out to me is that they rise from there beds with plenty of daylight, but most of the time they are still within sight as legal hunting light runs out. So a guy hunting over a feeder, probably ain't got much of a chance unless he gets lucky.

This matches our trail camera results over the past 10 or so years. We do no loose-feed (corn, pellets, etc.) feeding at all. We do plant food plots in the fall. We usually have about 15 cameras out at any given time. We have set cameras along trails that we believe to be leading into and out of bedding areas, as well as along trails in the bigger hard wood bottoms and ridges, obvious creek crossings and trails into and out of food plots. We have 1000's of photos of younger bucks and does moving along these trails all hours of the day. Last year we had about 350 photos of mature 8's and up, starting around July 15. Of these, 2 were great looking 10's, one thick but narrow 12 pt,. and 1 that was a massive, tall racked "bunch of points" non-typical. We are guessing 17 to 21 points but some of the left beam was always obscured, so we are not certain. We think that we had photos of 13 different really mature bucks. Of these 350 photos only 1 big buck was caught in daylight ... a huge 10 point came in behind 4 does onto a food plot at about 11:00 a.m. Almost all of these 350 photos were taken between 11:30 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. None of the other 12 bucks were ever caught moving in daylight. The non-typical buck was caught on the same trail, 4 nights in a row around mid-night during the peak time that the doe usually come into estrus ... and never caught on any of our cams again. These cameras were out from about July 15 of 2010, and on through January 2011.

Hunting pressure rather than feed seems to make deer nocturnal. Once tne bullets start flying deer adapt and learn. Natural browse will also affect their patterns.

Thanks fellas for all the added info. I hate it, but kinda glad to hear it's not just round here or that I got into a slack club. Only one thing to do, HUNT HARD:fighting0007:

When it gets closer to the Rut try hunting in the thicker covered area's or deeper woods,make sure your scent-free as possible and sneak into your stand in the early mornings and try staying on stand all day or as long as possible...some times when You don't see Deer movement in the early mornings they will move from around 10:00 to 1:00 when most Hunters are heading back for breakfast or lunch they end up jumping or scaring Deer towards you?If You see a Doe moving thru don't shoot her....wait patiently and there could very well be a Buck on her trail a few minutes behind her,hunt smarter and harder and you will eventually get a nice mature Buck.

I think baiting alone might not be pushing the deer nocturnal, but the combination of a lot of "baiters" milling around in the woods daily, often right at the natural feeding time, leaving the nice convenient piles of food may push the deer to this state.

One person, baiting a large area on a limited basis will not cause this. And I think if the bait could be deposited without human presence, it also would not cause it, even if there were a lot of bait - the deer will go and feed in the late afternoon, even if they are well fed daily with bait.

An article at http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/wnrmag/2009/02/bait.htm suggests that baiting alone causes nocturnal behavior, but the authors have their bias.

I have the exact same problem, nice bucks in velvet coming in to bait/minerals in late summer during all hours of day. Once late september hits most if not all of the big bucks come between 10pm and 4am. The area I hunt has some pressure during gun season but hardly any during bow. I am scent control conscious. I always wondered if the coyote pressure had any affect on this?