N. WI Deer Nocturnal, Every One of Them!
 

I live up in N. WI and in the last few weeks I have set some bait to try and get a late season archery deer. Every day, the deer come in from all directions, leaving many tracks and consume every bit of corn and frozen apples. Three different spots and the same thing: No deer until after dark. In two places I set up a plot cam and the 3rd I hunted one night. Not a deer. And the night I hunted, not a deer even close when I packed up at near dark. I am thinking that this is some sort of "selection" result. All the non-nocturnal deer have been harvested and only the nocturnal types remain. In addition, there are far fewer deer seen on the roads & fields this year.

Nocturnal Deer!!!
 

Completely agree with you. I have my cam's out and same result. Where do you hunt? I hunt in the Park Falls/Lugerville area.

Well, baiting makes deer nocturnal. You get what you put into a hunt. It sounds like little effort for no gain.

Hunting is like a job. Go the extra mile at work, and you get more out of the job. Baiting is the poor mans form of hunting.

I am in the Iron River area.

Deer move at night... They are night animals. It takes a little more effort and planning than just tossing down a bag of apples to kill a deer. If you want to catch them in daylight you have to hunt them where they move in daylight which is going to be close to where they bed. All deer move in daylight. They just don't all move far. Deer can and will relate bait to being a trap. They will smell the human scent from you putting the bait out and may react by coming in at night... My suggestion would be to do a little more scouting.

For nocturnal deer we find their bedding area and set up close hoping to get them coming in at first light. If that does not work we set up drives to push them out.

Couldn't of said it better myself, everyone thinks deer are like cattle or horses and are going to come in as soon as the feed hits the ground

I have a stand that I bait. I bait about 1 cup of corn and a few apples. I think the more bait the more nocturnal. Even a few handfulls spread out enough that the kernals don't even touch. I don't bait much at all anymore. Also it's been so warm lately it seems they don't have an urgencey to move a whole lot. A storm coming in tonight. Now put a bit of bait out for them to have a bite and see what comes in before dark the next few days. Most likely some will come in before dark. I all but stopped baiting, I see less deer but my biggest one by far was not over bait. Not coincedence. I still like to sit over bait before and afer nasty weather. To each his own.