When the Deer Move

[BackWoods Hunter]

Rather, when do the deer move? I am well aware that there is a ridiculous amount of info in this topic. However, I thought maybe under certain conditions I could get a more specific time table.

The area I hunt is in the big woods, obviously, with no hunting pressure. These deer are in their natural conditions. All things being equal, meaning weather conditions this time of year being mostly dry with temps from the 20's to low 40's, how do they behave?

Do deer sleep 8 hours in a row like us or do the sleep several times in a 24 hr period? Is their natural tendency to sleep at night or during the day? Lastly, is their any literature on this topic and for these conditions that is basically accepted by hunters here in the Adks?

One of the reasons I ask is because everyone always says that hunting pressure makes the deer go nocturnal. That implies that they are normally not nocturnal however that is not my experience. Seems to me they move mostly at night, regardless of hunting pressure.

Edited November 16, 2013 by BackWoods Hunter

[NFA-ADK]

A Guild to Adirondack Deer Hunting by Mr.Charles Alsheimer.

 

They do not sleep like us.  They move and take naps.

 

  http://justnorth.com/Articles/tabid/105/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2759/PageID/2442/Do_Whitetail_Deer_Sleep_and_Where_Do_Deer_Sleep_.aspx

 

Deer are natural nocturnal animals.  During rut bucks tend to get careless and roam more often covering much larger area's to inspect doe herds often during the day.  Try to find good doe tracks or sign and follow them, choke points are good, if you can be in the area of the doe the bucks will come.  Stay in the woods as long as you can, pack a lunch and extra food and know how to get out in the dark.  Deer have no time table.  Good luck!  Hope you get a monster!

 

[BackWoods Hunter]

http://justnorth.com/Articles/tabid/105/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2759/PageID/2442/Do_Whitetail_Deer_Sleep_and_Where_Do_Deer_Sleep_.aspx

Deer are natural nocturnal animals. During rut bucks tend to get careless and roam more often covering much larger area's to inspect doe herds often during the day. Try to find good doe tracks or sign and follow them, choke points are good, if you can be in the area of the doe the bucks will come. Stay in the woods as long as you can, pack a lunch and extra food and know how to get out in the dark. Deer have no time table. Good luck! Hope you get a monster!

That was interesting and confirmed what I was already thinking. They basically wander around eating and then lay down and go to sleep flow awhile, then repeat . They sleep and eat in a variety of places and at various times however almost exclusively at night.

This aligns more with my experience. Pattern the deer? Maybe for the short time they're moving during the day and even then it won't be too reliable. Push them to be nocturnal? They already are. Lastly, shoot a buck? I would have to say this is going to require a ridiculous amount of time spent in the woods coupled with an equal amount of dumb luck.

Am I wrong?

[crappyice]

A lot of time is my biggest obstacle being a westcheter resident and hunting 2 hours away. "Patterning" is an impossibility when I can scout a few times pre-season often weeks apart. I prefer to sit the am in spots that have produced in the past or show any early sign and use the 11-2:00 time to speed scout for the evening...not ideal but its the price for hunting far from home.

[BackWoods Hunter]

I guess I was just trying to see where my best chances lie. No need to hunt afternoons. Hunt the mornings and evenings, and always stay downwind. Get out as often as possible and hope that buck stops by the scrape while you're there. Seems like that about sums it up.

[DeerStalker22]

I wouldn't say don't hunt the afternoon, while I have never killed a buck during the afternoon, my father has killed two of his biggest buck around 1 in the afternoon.  As for the spending ridiculous amount of time in the woods and just plain luck, yes that accounts for a lot of kills in the big woods.  The deer I killed this past weekend, I spent the whole weekend before slowly still hunting his area to figure out where he beds, and where he comes out from the beds and works the hard woods.  I had patterned this buck to three gullies where he left his swamp to go to the hard woods where he tended his does and had all his scrapes.  This past sunday I just slowly still hunted these gullies and eventually found him on the final gully as he was coming out of the swamp.  I have found this as my go to method this time of year as the buck are up and moving during the rut.  I will take a weekend and slowly still hunt till im confident that I found his core habitat and then make a hunting plan to hunt him from there.  I hope this helps

[SchrnLker]

Anyone hunting the Adirondacks and not hunting between 10-2 is missing out on what I think is the best chance at a big buck. Evergreen fingers are travel corridors that they use to check doe groups.  Find those areas that have buck sign, and set up for mid day hunts, or, if conditions are good for still hunting, work those areas slowly. Over the last 24 yrs of hunting the ADKs these methods have paided off with quite a few trophy bucks.

[LiveToHunt]

While I dont have a ton of Adirondack buck kills (9 in last 13 years), I would definitely not "write off" the mid-day and early afternoon hours.  While I agree that most of the activity i see is during the first few hours, and the last 2 hours of daylight, 2 of my bucks were killed between 11AM and 1PM.  And 1 was killed at 10AM.  That's 1/3 of my Adirondack bucks during what I would consider mid-day.

Deer will move during the middle portion of the day - especially if you're in areas with low hunting pressure - they need to eat.  And of course during the rut, those bucks are cruising at practically any hour of the day, searching for does.

When I hunt in the Adirondacks, I generally like to pack a day-pack and spend all day in the woods.  It's dark when I leave my truck and it's dark when I return.  There is one 4 day weekend each year when I rent a cabin with a group of guys, and during that time we generally head back to the cabin for lunch - but it drives me nuts!!!!

[BUCKANDAQUARTER]

9 in 13 years is pretty impressive in my book, keep it up.

[LiveToHunt]

Well I failed to mention that during my first 10 years, I killed 0 bucks.  I guess you could say that during that time I was learning what NOT to do in the big woods   

[NFA-ADK]

Impressive LiveToHunt!  That's ok it took me 13 years to get my first and another 10 years in between for my second ADK buck.  Just finding a buck track in these remote area's can be a task.  Some painful lessons learned over those years!  The area I took my 3rd this year had no tracks in the snow when my friends when 2 weeks later.  Last year I found 1 large big buck track in 9 days with about 5 days of snow and many miles covered with vehicle and on foot.  Depending on where you hunt the population can vary greatly, increase your odds by hunting populated areas.  Several doe herds of 4 or more is ideal.  Towns, golf courses, farms and other manicured type area's offer great habitat deer love and usually have higher populations.   Deep woods offer many things but high deer population is usually not one of them from what I have seen and documented.

 

One thing about going out for lunch is this:  If you go in a mile you hike out a mile for lunch then do it all over again.  4 miles with 2 hiking miles to get in and out, more time for deer to see, hear or smell you.  If you pack a lunch you can cover a 3 mile circle for the day with much better results and stealth.  None of my bucks where taken at first or last light 10am-3:30pm.  I will not come out of the woods for lunch I am usually too far back and would disturb the woods too much. 

 

In so far as time and dumb luck.  Try to increase your odds.  If it is warm or conditions exist for bad wind or low deer movement then do not hunt.  The less you disturb the area and the less they see you the better your odds of seeing them during the day.  (Sometimes hunting harder means hunting less.)Deer are nocturnal but that is the beauty of the rut, they can move at any time and will.  They have to eat and want DOE!!!  Proper barometric presser, just before storm fronts and after storms deer will move more often.  Find where they bed and feed and try to catch them in this transition zone, choke points, valleys with steep cliffs and other land features offer good area's to target.  Above all hunt bad weather as often as possible, its fun when prepped and offers great cover for staking both visual and audio.  High winds above 15-20 mph make deer bed from what I understand.  To much tree and branch movement for them to identify predators.     

 

If you are only seeing them at dusk or dawn you are probably close to their bedding areas.  Find where they come in and out of these areas if possible to set up an early morning or late evening ambush.  Find several groups of doe to pattern.  Doe offer you the best decoy and scent, rutting bucks can not resist.  Snow offers trails, crossings, bedding and other valuable information.  Document every time out for future reference.  Deer in new area's will follow old patterns of other deer, not exactly but enough where it is worth documenting every encounter.  

 

Go with your instinct, intuition, knowledge of prey and lay of the land.  Good luck, hope some of this helps. 

[LiveToHunt]

One last point I think is worth mentioning. If you compare big woods (Northern Zone) hunting vs Southern Zone hunting, one of the biggest factors to consider in my opinion is the amount of food that is readily available.

In the southern zone, there is tons of food - lots of farm land, apple orchards etc. It's a lot easier for a deer to go "nocturnal". They can bed down most of the day, and they know exactly where to go once the sun goes down, to get lots of food.

Northern zone big woods is an entirely different ballgame. Deer need to eat several pounds of food a day, and there is not an endless supply of food in the Adirondacks. They'll bed down for periods during the day, but they will definitely be up and about, covering a fair amount of ground to find and consume enough food. This need for food, and the need for them to cover ground to get that food, is one of the reasons that mid-day hunts in the big woods shouldn't be overlooked.

I agree with NFA-ADK, an all-day hunt is the best in my view.

[bluecoupe]

Deer move when then they're pushed or when they feel like it and that can be anytime. You'll never shoot one from your couch.

Edited December 13, 2013 by SteveC

[nyantler]

When hunting big woods late season sitting can be futile... the vastness and low deer density of the big woods makes waiting for a deer, especially a bigger buck, nothing more than a long wait... in fact you could be there the rest of your life and never see a deer... still hunting or tracking is most affective because the deer don't have to be moving for you to find one.. snow is best... but hunting cover near a good food source is a good bet as well. Bucks are conserving energy after an exhausting breeding season and don't move very far even if they move... they feed mainly at night... because they are conserving energy they tend to hold a bit longer in their bed late in the season and its possible to get the jump on one if you move slowly.

[A Sportsman]

Sneaking around the mountains with snow on the ground is a wonderful thing. In late season, I find it common to have to travel a long ways to find fresh sign. But once I find that sign, its game on. That said, I unfortunately can't say I've killed any truly big bucks in this fashion yet. Wish I had more opportunities to hunt snow. By late season wife has had enuf of my hunting and I am in damage control mode.

[bluecoupe]

I'd have to agree that still hunting in a fresh snowfall is my favorite time in the woods, it just doesn't get much prettier.

[Doc]

.......They move and take naps.......

 

That's the way I am getting. It's worse each year.

 

[NFA-ADK]

Another note:

While I have taken most of my deer during mid day.  The most action and best times seem to be first and last light.  This is a long day of hunting, before first light to get to a good spot and then staying until you can not legally shoot is usually a 12+ hour day or longer depending how far back you hunt.  With limited time to hunt I like to make the most out of it by hunting hard late morning to dark and find good sign, then getting up early to set up an ambush/stalk when the sign indicates good morning feeding.

 

Buck sign in remote area can be extremely difficult to find, this is why I try to key in on doe as much as possible.  For me it is better to find a few doe groups as oppose to trying to key in on a buck that might have vacated the area looking for doe. 

 

Early season bow, bucks tend to still be in groups but that brakes up as buck become filled with testosterone and do not tolerate younger buck competition.  I have guys who have stayed in the area of great buck sign to see no deer for the week. 

 

I feel the same way Doc!  A good nap at 12 ish is usually required just to keep alert.  If I sleep it is usually the hottest part of the day.  4:30 am to 6:30 + pm can cause problems if you do not sleep enough.  9pm is a late night under these conditions but my hunting partners will usually keep me up to at least 11 pm requiring a mid day nap.

[BackWoods Hunter]

From Nov 19th - Nov 23rd I was seeing deer every evening. I wasn't hunting mornings. I had two bucks come within 10 yards one night. Another night I had a doe and a fawn come within 10 yards. None of the deer were scenting me or seeing me. I only spooked them when they could here me walking out or in.

On the 24th the weather turned hot and it got up into the 60's. After that obviously we had the snow storm and the cold temps that followed.

I stopped seeing deer on the 24th. What happened?

[jjb4900]

From Nov 19th - Nov 23rd I was seeing deer every evening. I wasn't hunting mornings. I had two bucks come within 10 yards one night. Another night I had a doe and a fawn come within 10 yards. None of the deer were scenting me or seeing me. I only spooked them when they could here me walking out or in.

On the 24th the weather turned hot and it got up into the 60's. After that obviously we had the snow storm and the cold temps that followed.

I stopped seeing deer on the 24th. What happened?

what happened? sounds to me like they got fed up with trying to get you to shoot one of them, so they took the party elsewhere.

[BackWoods Hunter]

Lmao!

[BackWoods Hunter]

So I have a theory about this. I haven't thought about it long though so I'm hoping you guys can tell me what mistakes I've made.

Deer are nocturnal which means they don't like the light, be it light coming from the moon or the sun. They feel safer when it's dark so they're more active at those times.

This means deer are happiest when there's a new moon because there's complete darkness all night long. They are most active from sunrise to sunset.

After the new moon, the moon begins to set later. Instead of the deer moving at sunset, they wait for complete darkness when the moon goes down.

Eventually more than half the night is lit by the moon. At this point the deer begin to get accustomed to it. They begin being more active at sunset however still prefer to be inactive at sunrise.

Next comes the full moon when there is light throughout the night. By now the deer are fully accustomed to the moon light. They move the most from sunrise and sunset.

After the full moon, there is complete darkness for a short period of time after sunset but before the moonrise. The deer begin to be active at sunset again. However because they've become accustomed to moving during lit (moonlit) conditions, they continue to be active after the sun rise.

Eventually more than half the night is covered in darkness because the moonrise is so much later. The deer are transitioning out of being accustomed to the moon's brightness and become inactive at moonrise.

Finally, the cycle repeats itself with the new moon.

All of this assumes the air is cool, there are no weather fronts moving through, and the rut is not taking place. Hunting pressure could skew the times towards a more conservative cycle with the deer moving less in the twilight hours.

Edited December 8, 2014 by BackWoods Hunter

[silentdog]

Interesting research going on at Penn State that includes some telemetry tracking of deer over time and in varied habitats.  Sponsored by PSU, U.S. Geological Survey, PA Game Commission, and PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry.  Much of this would probably apply to NY deer to a sigfnificant extent.  Interesting reading in any event. Does a very good job of making deer research understandable to the non-scientist. 

 

Check it out:  http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/about

 

Specific study on movement during hunting season:  http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/news/2014/vampire-bucks...not-hardly

[Doc]

Interesting research going on at Penn State that includes some telemetry tracking of deer over time and in varied habitats.  Sponsored by PSU, U.S. Geological Survey, PA Game Commission, and PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry.  Much of this would probably apply to NY deer to a sigfnificant extent.  Interesting reading in any event. Does a very good job of making deer research understandable to the non-scientist. 

 

Check it out:  http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/about

 

Specific study on movement during hunting season:  http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/news/2014/vampire-bucks...not-hardly

Those guys at Penn State really do some cool stuff!

[nyantler]

Interesting research going on at Penn State that includes some telemetry tracking of deer over time and in varied habitats.  Sponsored by PSU, U.S. Geological Survey, PA Game Commission, and PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry.  Much of this would probably apply to NY deer to a sigfnificant extent.  Interesting reading in any event. Does a very good job of making deer research understandable to the non-scientist. 

 

Check it out:  http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/about

 

Specific study on movement during hunting season:  http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/news/2014/vampire-bucks...not-hardly

Very good stuff... proves that deer have the advantage of knowing their stomping ground very well... I found it interesting too that the bucks picked the highest point in their area when the pressure was on.. that has always been lore passed down by older deer trackers.