There's something magical about a morning hunt. Maybe it's the mystery. You go in blind, in the dark, settle in and wait. Ever so slowly the woods come to life. Dark, vague animal shapes gradually reveal themselves as stumps. Approaching footsteps in the dry leaves start your heart but it's only a tardy possum heading for its den. Maybe it's the anxiety. A short time before, you were sound asleep. Now you move hastily to your stand like the white rabbit, late for some very important date. The whole day lies ahead but you know the most productive hour is fleeting. The deer seem to know it too as they move purposefully toward their morning beds.

Afternoons are a more casual affair. You take your time getting on stand, and even more getting ready once you're there. It may be an hour or more before the deer start moving, and then they'll be in no great hurry to get anywhere in particular. Their numbers will slowly increase and there's no sense of urgency until the final few moments of daylight tick away.

Which time is better? If push came to shove I guess I'd have to go with afternoons; but I'd venture to guess you could find equal numbers of archery hunters on either side of the argument. Their justification may be based on conventional wisdom imparted to them by some local veteran, an accumulation of their own past experience, personal preference or merely what best suits their work schedule. But does one period really offer better odds than another?

Research from Georgia and Texas showed fall deer activity peaking at dawn and dusk. No big surprise there. The morning peak was more pronounced, with deer traveling farther distances--on average, almost twice as far as in the afternoon. However, morning activity was concentrated in a shorter time span, 6 to 8 a.m. whereas afternoons registered most activity between 4 and 8 p.m.

The Pressure Factor
Results from a controlled hunt in Ohio showed hunter success rates declined over the duration of the hunt. More precisely, increased effort (time) was required to be successful because of fewer shot opportunities. Part of this, intuitively, was due to fewer remaining deer. But the decline was greater than could be accounted for strictly by fewer deer. The difference was considered an artifact of hunting pressure. This too you would expect. Somewhat unexpected was that the decline was more pronounced in morning hunts than in afternoon hunts.

The biologists had a hypothesis for that too. They reasoned that deer, theoretically, would have been active during the morning hunts and resting during the early part of the afternoon hunts. The active deer would be more inclined to flee from approaching hunters by immediately leaving the area, thus making them less visible and less vulnerable.