Morning or Evening?

[TOGIE]

What a phenomenally boring few days to be at work.

I've pondered this question plenty of times and I feel solid in my answer, at least with my personal data thus far as a hunter.

Let's say you have one day that you can go hunt, but you only are able to do a half day for whatever reason. Which do you choose/prioritize?

Early morning up to noon or starting at noon into the evening till end of shooting light? Yes it's on odd scenario because if you can choose either one it would imply you don't actually have an obligation, right? But that's not entirely the point right now.

Exactly 2/3 of my successful hunts involved the trigger pull occurring after 12 noon. My overall average time of trigger pull comes out to 2:10 pm, which shows that bell curve tugging to later in the day. Plus, if you only get one and are going into an area you've never been, I'd much rather orient myself getting in there during the day and find prime glassing spots for the afternoon, rather than fumbling around in the dark only to find what you thought was a good glassing spot was no good when you get some light to see what's up.

Probably will be different for midwest/eastern hunts than western hunts. On my now whopping experience and sample size of one Wisconsin archery hunt, it sure felt like the mornings were better.

Biggest confounding variable I can think of is that a lot of those late afternoon/evening trigger pulls of mine were the result of a days worth of work - finding sign, finding animals, bedding animals, ultimately getting into position on animals - that started before the sun came up, which is likely why success came in the evening.

Am I in the minority here?

Can't forget that a little extra sleep can sure make a day more enjoyable.

 

[FairWeather]

I’ve always heard that if you had to pick one, go with the evenings. But my personal experience has been that I’ve seen more deer in the mornings.
Plus I’d rather field dress and pack out in the daylight rather than in the dark.

Additionally, maybe my eyes are worse than average, it seems that pretty much as soon as the sun sets I can’t see anything. So while it might be legal to shoot for another half hour, I don’t feel it’s safe for me to do so.

 

[Treeshark]

Wisconsin whitetails- early season PM seems to be way better, shifts to morning once late Oct/early Nov rolls around. I have shot more bucks in the morning by a decent margin, but my two biggest were in the afternoon on really warm days in early November. Weird.

Western mule deer seems like morning has more deer sightings for me, but I’ve actually shot more in the afternoon as well. I feel way more confident hunting in the morning though, not sure why. I do like shooting them in the morning better just for the processing aspect.

 

[Gellar]

All of my white tails above 150” have been in the afternoon, last 30 minutes of light. The 2 elk I’ve killed were both in the afternoon, both were between 3 and 4 pm. The 2 moose kills I’ve been apart of were midday.

 

[undercover]

White tail guy, I will always hunt evening because on private or public I will be watching the food or in between bedding and food. This is my high confidence hunt, successful. Mornings I find they are already off the food heading back to bedding and I have little intel where they are at at dark 30. Low confidence time for me.

 

[Bambistew]

I would guess about 80% of all the deer/elk I shot were within an hour of shooting light. Almost all elk where shot in the morning, and probably 3/4 of the whitetails in the evening, and most all mule deer in the morning.

If I had to pick one it would be morning, you have more time to catch them moving from feeding to bedding. Afternoon/evening, is always a shorter hunt.

Moose is split 50/50 morning and evening. Most caribou where shot mid day after spotting them and stalking. Sheep were mostly early morning or late evening catching them coming/going to beds.

 

[kwyeewyk]

All seven elk killed in afternoon, 3-4pm most often. Most of my deer kills are morning though, so I guess I'd pick afternoon for elk and morning for deer.

 

[cgasner1]

Depends for me on the weather if it’s hot I like the mornings better game have been up all night and I can catch them in transit. If its they usually get up earlier and feed for a better evening hunt. Afternoon sucks most the time when it’s been 100 out and you feel like they don’t move till it’s to dark to shoot anyhow

 

[Nick87]

Mornings have been more productive probably 80% of good bucks I've killed.

 

[WildWill]

Whitetail hunting at home mornings. But on my western hunts seem to be more killing in the evening.

 

[TOGIE]

Afternoon/evening, is always a shorter hunt.

this is a good point, and one i was definitely aware of and overlooking a little.

it has definitely been apparent to me how much shorter the evening "hunt" can often be. the evening mule deer movement rarely starts until there is, i dunno, 1.5 hours of shooting light left. and you might not see them until the stalk becomes a race against time.

but man, you can catch deer still milling about easily at 10 am. of course weather plays significant a role here too.

i guess like everything, it can depend. packing out in the dark sucks and is kinda one of those rites of passage. it's just hard to ignore the time of day most my success has been at.

 

[TOGIE]

specifically mule deer, 60% of mine were shot in the afternoon/evening.

 

[Hunting Wife]

I think I’ve probably killed animals about equally between mornings and afternoons. But there’s something about watching the sunrise and glassing in that morning light that I really love.

 

[Nick87]

The thing I like about the morning is once the sun breaks I've got as long as I want to keep going. In the evening you've only got so much time before shooting light ends.

 

[FREAK]

I like morning because you can impact how far in you want to be by simply getting up earlier. Evening hunt's i'm always sprinting in for 30 minutes of hunting to just turn around and hike out and it limits the areas I can hunt based on those constraints. Morning I can get up earlier, hike in the dark and be to the spot before first light. If we're talking sitting a deer stand in the backyard that's a moot point, but for elk hunting I tend to pick the AM's.

 

[TOGIE]

I think I’ve probably killed animals about equally between mornings and afternoons. But there’s something about watching the sunrise and glassing in that morning light that I really love.

i was gonna bring this up and didn't.

sunrises are 100% > than sunsets

sunrises are definitely prettier and bring excitement and hope for the day.

sunsets are fun and pretty from camp, not so much when sitting on a windy knob 3-4 miles from camp.

 

[buckbull]

Really dependent on weather and what stage of the rut (most of my hunting is IL whitetails). For example, I would pick midday if it was post rut and zero degree day. I don't have good records but I would surmise that I'm 50/50 as too whether something was killed in the morning or evening. I will say this, IL divides its firearm seasons into 2 long weekends. The first is the weekend prior to thanksgiving week and the second is the week after thanksgiving week. I've had better luck on mature bucks in the second weekend even though most would say the rut is starting to wind down.

 

[Nick87]

Really dependent on weather and what stage of the rut (most of my hunting is IL whitetails). For example, I would pick midday if it was post rut and zero degree day. I don't have good records but I would surmise that I'm 50/50 as too whether something was killed in the morning or evening. I will say this, IL divides its firearm seasons into 2 long weekends. The first is the weekend prior to thanksgiving week and the second is the week after thanksgiving week. I've had better luck on mature bucks in the second weekend even though most would say the rut is starting to wind down.

Imo That 2nd weekend can be great as some of those does can be coming in a 2nd time if they didn't get bred depending on the year.

 

[TOGIE]

i will say, it is decided that tomorrow will just be an evening mule deer hunt. hoping to be on the knob by 12:30. luckily things should be rutty which lean in our favor for more afternoon movement.

the constraint tomorrow is my older brother will be in tow and he can't leave is dog alone from 4 am to what could potentially be 8-9 pm with no one able to let it out.

i chose evening, partially just to make our lives a little easier. and yes, my stats told me to. we will see what we see. and this is an unknown spot to me, but a unit i've hunted multiple times succesfully. Luckily, the real meat of this hunt will be a solo friday/saturday/sunday venture if nothing is found tomorrow in the known spots.

there were originally no plans to even hunt tomorrow until my wife told me to go, so chalk it up to just a bonus (half) day outside in new country.

 

[Flatbrimmer]

All day or nothing! Screw lunch at the cafe I’m staying out!