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Some interesting buck "time of day" data

Good stuff Bryan.
Thanks for sharing.
I agree.
There will always be "outliers" for the mid day movers but generally speaking spot on!

In 338 bow kills and 35 gun kills my most repetitive kill time is 10 AM EST (after time change 9 AM) and 7/6 PM.

One of my largest bucks was an outlier at noon in a bamboo thicket on a doe in rut.

I rarely walk to my stand in dark. Almost always it's breaking day.

Also I rarely ever leave before 11 EST before the time changes. 10 or so after it drops back.

I generally get on stand about 4 EST.
 
BSK said:
HOWEVER, I'm fascinated by the unusual peak in mature buck percentages for the 3 PM hour in a poor acorn year. Of the mature bucks I've killed in the afternoon, almost all have fallen just after 3 PM during a poor acorn year.
Click to expand...

Odd you mention the 3pm hr. I have one particular stand in hill & holler country that sits on a skinny finger ridge dropping down from a military shelf that overlooks a saddle with an oak grove in the bowl of it. For the last 3yrs in a row on Oct. 30th I have watched big bucks get out of bed from that point and walk down that finger during the 3pm hour. Different buck each year and one was within bow range and I killed him. The spot is so consistent within time & date that it feels like cheating. It's uncanny. There's just something about that spot on that day at that time. I don't know the relation to acorn production other than there are nuts there every year, even in bad years. There are a couple dozen mature white oaks within a 3 acre area and it is the busiest spot on the property for does while those oaks are dropping.
 
diamond hunter said:
My guess is all these times are regional?
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I would almost guarantee they are not only regional, but probably unique to THAT location. I have no doubt if this data were collected somewhere else, the numbers would come out a bit differently. I never cease to be amazed how rapidly deer adapt to localized conditions. Change the conditions (move the deer to a different property/habitat), and they will change their behavior.
 
fairchaser said:
Likely you would have more events of mature buck movement between 11-2 inside of bedding areas. For obvious reasons, your cameras were outside of these areas. But, if you were going to hunt during these times, being on the edge of these areas, might be more productive.

I've killed a buck or two chasing does in these bedding areas and had the doe break out into the timber with the buck following during these times.

Thanks for sharing this valuable information BSK.
Click to expand...
No doubt I would find some different results if cameras were deep in thick cover. But as you hinted at, we don't enter or place cameras in our thick sanctuary cover.

And you are absolutely correct about hunting the edges of thick cover. As I discussed in the thread on "what have we learned from all the data we collect," I had discovered where 100% of our 3 1/2 year-old buck sightings had occurred from stands positioned within 100 yards of thick cover. That taught me to intentionally place stands along the edges of thick cover. I can't count the number of times I've gotten glimpses of older to mature bucks working just inside the edges, or watched a mature buck chasing a doe in and out of that cover. With the mature buck I killed this last year, the stand was positioned with my back to the cover, not more than 15 yards behind me. I caught the buck coming out of the cover about 50 yards to my right.
 
During the rut, I believe mature bucks move around much more during late morning & mid-day than the data suggests, and most hunters think.

The main reason more hunters aren't aware is because so few are actually out hunting after mid-morning. The main reason the trail cams don't catch more of it is multi-fold.
 
BSK said:
I would almost guarantee they are not only regional, but probably unique to THAT location. I have no doubt if this data were collected somewhere else, the numbers would come out a bit differently. I never cease to be amazed how rapidly deer adapt to localized conditions. Change the conditions (move the deer to a different property/habitat), and they will change their behavior.
Click to expand...
I'm willing to bet you'll likely see more daylight movement, particularly later in the morning and earlier in the afternoon, now that you've vastly improved your habitat with all your logging. That has been what we have seen undoubtedly.
 
Another thing to remember is the hunting pressure variable. I've been inputting only the November and December data because I'm trying to learn things that will make us more successful hunters, and those two months are when we do all of our hunting. And we put a LOT of pressure on the property during November, to the tune of about 200-250 hours of treestand time during that month alone. What would the data look like if the property WASN'T being hunted during the rut month? I bet quite different!

Eventually I will get around to entering the data for the pre-rut month of October. Being pre-rut, and especially be UNHUNTED during that month, will probably display from very different results.
 
There are different "types" of buck movement during the rut, and for older bucks not currently with a doe, I believe most those older bucks will actually spend more time "moving" during the day than bedding.

Break this buck movement (among bucks not tending a doe) down into two broad categories:

1) Stalking doe bedding areas
2) Significant linear distance moves between doe bedding areas.

We miss observing most these mid-day movements mainly because of cam placement and as hunters, our physically not being out there hunting (and/or not hunting within or close enough to heavier cover).

We hunters also miss seeing a lot because we've not paid enough attention to detail when it comes to the noises we make coming & going, and often "over-hunt" our hunting spots. This often causes deer to alter where they more habitually spend their time during midday, having learned our coming & going routes. This is part of why I habitually move my mobile stands @ 1 pm most days, and avoid hunting a particular tree or spot more than one evening & morning in a 2-week period. My moves from one spot to another are commonly @ 75 yds.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
I'm willing to bet you'll likely see more daylight movement, particularly later in the morning and earlier in the afternoon, now that you've vastly improved your habitat with all your logging. That has been what we have seen undoubtedly.
Click to expand...
Funny you mention that. In the past, our "habitat management" consisted mainly of cutting small patches of timber every 5 years or so. The total acreage cut was never great, only 20-25 acres at a time, scattered in 3-5 acre patches. That's only 5% of the total property with each cut. Yet even with those small changes, we would see significant changes in daylight deer activity rising and falling on a cycle that matched our timbering schedule. Now with the massive single year change of cutting 20% of the property, I'm excited to see what results. Last year was our first year of hunting after the big timber cut, and I definitely saw behaviors and movement patterns I've never seen before, even though it was a bumper acorn year. I can't imagine how different things will be in a poor acorn year, like it looks like it will be for us this coming year.
 
One thing I've discussed with BSK before, but not on this thread, is how wind habitually effects older buck movement during the rut. I absolutely love having lots of those young beech trees purposefully left in the more mature hardwoods bordering sanctuary cover.

On those "big frost" November mornings when the air is still, there is something magical that often occurs @ mid-morning (about the time BSK has left his stand) as the wind begins picking up, just enough to kinda gently, but steadily "rattle" those beech leaves. They actually can sound very much like a deer walking.

I believe bedded bucks often mistake the sound of rattling beech leaves for walking deer, then often leave bedding areas to investigate what they heard.

Also, I believe ANY periodically heard sound, breaking silence on a rather calm day, can stimulate older buck movement. I believe they've learned that other sounds camouflage their walking sounds, and feel more secure in making a move when such sounds present. Wind is one of the best and most common, but an airplane going over often seems to stimulate deer getting up and walking.

But back to those beech trees.
The are both a blessing & a curse. They can greatly limit vision, and prevent one from hearing a walking deer. Many hunters want to have them removed, as do the foresters. I prefer leaving a few around good stand sites, believing some are more blessing than curse.
 
TheLBLman said:
One thing I've discussed with BSK before, but not on this thread, is how wind habitually effects older buck movement during the rut. I absolutely love having lots of those young beech trees purposefully left in the more mature hardwoods bordering sanctuary cover.

On those "big frost" November mornings when the air is still, there is something magical that often occurs @ mid-morning (about the time BSK has left his stand) as the wind begins picking up, just enough to kinda gently, but steadily "rattle" those beech leaves. They actually can sound very much like a deer walking.

I believe bedded bucks often mistake the sound of rattling beech leaves for walking deer, then often leave bedding areas to investigate what they heard.

Also, I believe ANY periodically heard sound, breaking silence on a rather calm day, can stimulate older buck movement. I believe they've learned that other sounds camouflage their walking sounds, and feel more secure in making a move when such sounds present. Wind is one of the best and most common, but an airplane going over often seems to stimulate deer getting up and walking.

But back to those beech trees.
The are both a blessing & a curse. They can greatly limit vision, and prevent one from hearing a walking deer. Many hunters want to have them removed, as do the foresters. I prefer leaving a few around good stand sites, believing some are more blessing than curse.
Click to expand...
You mention this periodically. We don't have many beech trees on our place, so I don't have a clue. However, my FIL's place in Jackson county has a lot of them and the deer movement there is much different than in Hickman. Often it is later in the morning. This is definitely something to look at to see any correlation.
 
BSK said:
I'm excited to see what results. Last year was our first year of hunting after the big timber cut, and I definitely saw behaviors and movement patterns I've never seen before, even though it was a bumper acorn year. I can't imagine how different things will be in a poor acorn year, like it looks like it will be for us this coming year.
Click to expand...
I'm sure you'll see a trending percentage jump overall on average
 
TheLBLman said:
One thing I've discussed with BSK before, but not on this thread, is how wind habitually effects older buck movement during the rut. I absolutely love having lots of those young beech trees purposefully left in the more mature hardwoods bordering sanctuary cover.

On those "big frost" November mornings when the air is still, there is something magical that often occurs @ mid-morning (about the time BSK has left his stand) as the wind begins picking up, just enough to kinda gently, but steadily "rattle" those beech leaves. They actually can sound very much like a deer walking.

I believe bedded bucks often mistake the sound of rattling beech leaves for walking deer, then often leave bedding areas to investigate what they heard.

Also, I believe ANY periodically heard sound, breaking silence on a rather calm day, can stimulate older buck movement. I believe they've learned that other sounds camouflage their walking sounds, and feel more secure in making a move when such sounds present. Wind is one of the best and most common, but an airplane going over often seems to stimulate deer getting up and walking.

But back to those beech trees.
The are both a blessing & a curse. They can greatly limit vision, and prevent one from hearing a walking deer. Many hunters want to have them removed, as do the foresters. I prefer leaving a few around good stand sites, believing some are more blessing than curse.
Click to expand...

I've never been a fan of the beech tree.... during our last timber harvest they were included on the list of trees marked to be cut....then also beech saplings were targeted on the hack-n-squirt project....but I still see some that were missed...and seeing some that were missed frustrated me at first....but now that I read your observations I guess having a few around is a good thing!....we just don't want entire areas overcome with beech.
 
I gotta get my wife to read this thread....just so she can see that I'm not totally insane....or at least I'm not the only person analyzing deer travel patterns, effects of forest stand improvements on deer movement, trying to understand all I can from previous kills, etc and etc....don't get me wrong....I'm blessed with an extremely supportive wife...but I have been accused of having a one track mind....deer & habitat management.
So y'all keep the comments and observations coming...I can use this to show my wife I'm not crazy.....or at least I can show her I'm not the only crazy person out there :)
 
DoubleRidge said:
I've never been a fan of the beech tree.... during our last timber harvest they were included on the list of trees marked to be cut....then also beech saplings were targeted on the hack-n-squirt project....but I still see some that were missed...and seeing some that were missed frustrated me at first....but now that I read your observations I guess having a few around is a good thing!....we just don't want entire areas overcome with beech.
Click to expand...
We have a long narrow ridge on our property where we had clear-cut the hillsides but left the big timber standing along the ridge-line. We were hoping the big oaks along the ridge-line would draw the deer up out of the hillside regrowth cover where they would be exposed in the big timber. However, with the hillside canopy removed, sunlight got up under the ridge-line canopy and young Beeches took over the understory, greatly limiting visibility. So a couple of years ago I went in with a chainsaw in winter and cut all the Beeches within a 50 yard radius of each of my favorite stand sites. Improved visibility from the stands dramatically. However, where do the bucks now cross the ridge? Through the strips of Beeches I didn't cut. :mad:

The best laid plans...
 
Back several years ago, I wrote some software that took my pictures date/time information, and loaded to a database. Then I wrote a front-end to interface with that data, and enter specific information (buck/doe/known buck/cameral location, etc).

Then my software would pull down moon phase information, atmospheric conditions (temp/humidity/etc). Then it would allow you to run all sorts of reports.

I had about 6 yrs worth of data compiled before I quit working with it.
 

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