Hunting time during season

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heartdart
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Hunting time during season

Unread postby heartdart » Fri Nov 25, 2022 1:05 am

Hello everyone. I hope you are having a great season. I have a question for you all concerning your opportunity to hunt during season and success rate. I'm not asking about/advice on your off season scouting or your tactics. Time is a topic my wife and dad talk to me about all of the time. I'm trying to look objectively at my success rate (or lack thereof) I'm only interested in those of you who hunt public areas because that's all I get to hunt(hence I posted here lol). Leases/baiting would change this equation. I'll start with other questions once I can better understand some other beasts time constraints. Thanks!


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OH nontypical
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby OH nontypical » Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:10 am

Good question. I get to hunt on weekends and about 5-7 solid days in November using vacation days.

I hunt about 50/50 public and private throughout a season. I don’t hunt over bait on private but do hunt some quality properties. Without a doubt my success rate is higher on the class of buck I pursue each year on private.

Success for me is defined as shot opportunities not kills as I pass up many bucks in a season due to lack of age and or rack size. My last public buck taken was 2019. He was a quality buck. I have been near some true giants in the last two years in public and private but didn’t get them shot for different reasons.

I guess my point here is that all things being equal your success rate on any age class of bucks will usually be better on private than public. Usually but not always.

Don’t get discouraged. Use whatever time you have in the woods to learn how the deer in your area move week to week and season to season. There is tons of great info on this site and on others to help you find your definition of success regardless of the property you hunt.

Good luck and safe hunting!
Last edited by OH nontypical on Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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OH nontypical
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby OH nontypical » Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:10 am

Double post please delete.
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1STRANGEWILDERNESS
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby 1STRANGEWILDERNESS » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:01 am

If I can get 3 hunts per week…Not whole days.. but chances to either hunt an am or pm, or a few hr scouting mission. I couple this with the occasional whole day off work.

Anyhow if I can get that 3 per week then I’m pretty confident I’m going to get 1-3 chances at a mature buck on public. Every season is different.
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby NorthStar » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:57 am

I am assuming we are defining “success” as killing a mature buck? If so, my rate hovers right around zero, ha!

But, this is actually not how I define success for myself. Success is the feeling of being closer then I was before to killing a mature buck. For me, its all about getting the next puzzle piece.

To answer your question more directly, I am getting out for about one sit a week and they are usually evening sits. I have a wife and three kids in sports, so I am trying not to push the hunting thing too much at home. I also get about 6 days for firearm in November. I seem to be getting more and more time for the outdoors as my kids get older. Hopefully me getting older doesn’t slow my down! My back is not happy with me right now!
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby Hawthorne » Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:19 am

Winter and spring scouting spread out over 5 moths will help you get on deer faster on public land with limited time. If you want to head straight to a stand to hunt without the time of in season scouting. Some may disagree
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RadioHunter
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby RadioHunter » Fri Nov 25, 2022 11:35 am

I only hunt public land in an area that gets moderate to higher pressure. during bow season I typically get 2-3 hunt per week, never full days. some of those are evenings after work others are morning before work (My schedule varies day to day, so I take what I can get). Family events take up most of my evenings and at least 1 weekend day.

Like others have said, I do a lot of scouting in the winter and spring months. I find december and January to be the best, as you can see where all the hottest sign from the season was laid down. By doing this the last 3-4 years I have 8-10 "spots" I check just before and during season to see if they are heating up. I hunt the hot sign and if it fizzles move on to the next spot that has fresh sign.

For rut, I have a few spots that seem to always have deer move through. its just about being present to succeed at those places

I shoot deer every year, but not the monsters you see posted on here all the time. usually 2-3 y/o deer, so maybe im not the best resource. Im a meat hunter at heart and love shooting deer
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby SO IL » Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:32 am

I hunt 100% public, 100% mobile setups in moderate to heavy hunting pressure areas. I am responding about archery hunting only and hunting shots 30 yards or less. Baiting or driving deer is not allowed where i hunt.

I hunt 3-4 sits per week, each sit being 2-4hrs, usually on weekends. I usually get 1-2 shot opportunities per season on bucks 3 1/2 years old or older (that's about as old as they get on public here for the most part). Every now and then I go a whole season with no shot opportunities on a 3 1/2 yr old buck. I get several shot opportunities on younger bucks and especially on does. Putting meat in the freezer with does isn't usually a problem.

I also do in season scouting if need be, even if it means losing some sits. I still am always learning and trying to improve. I think it's tough to get an average success rate established between different hunters because public land opportunities and deer density vary alot from place to place, as well as the hunter's tactics and experience level.

I try to use the hunting time I have wisely, constantly observe and improve, and have fun doing it too. Comparison can be the killer of contentment. Good luck out there. Be safe and have fun.
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby Rich M » Thu Jan 12, 2023 7:37 am

Ideally, id get 10 days to hunt. 3 long weekends pretty much.

This year i had a 3 day quota tag. Scouted 3 days, hunted 2. Shot a 5 pt.

That was it for my deer hunting this year.
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby DeadHeadSpread » Thu Jan 12, 2023 10:54 am

For me 20-25 hunts a year, about 50/50 on public/private land. Early season, rut, gun season but hunting with a bow, and late season. Over half are evening sits, a few all dayers, and a decent number of mornings. Pretty even mix of mobile saddle sets, presets, and mobile ground hunts (no blind.). Most seasons I get a good sighting of a buck I would shoot 1 or 2 times. I target what look like 3-1/2 or older most of the year and my standards drop to 2-1/2 year olds if I still don’t have a buck by late season. This is in my home state of PA. Hope to start making a whitetail trip out of state some years starting next season.

This year I had 0 good sightings. Partly to blame are a 2 week public land elk hunting trip to Colorado in October, and then arriving home to discover trail cam pics of a huge buck and only targeting him in the rut.
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby PK_ » Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:09 pm

I generally hunt in my home state anywhere from 10-15 days per year and usually kill 3-5 bucks.

I don’t scout outside of season, but did start using some trail cams in the last few years, and those are definitely a time suck, but it’s hard to target specific bucks without them…
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby MOtgrinMI » Tue Mar 07, 2023 4:21 pm

Like many here with young kids, time is extremely limited. If I’m lucky I’ll get 2 sits am or pm for a few hours a week. I’d love to get back to the at least 4 sits a week I had before kids because man was my success rate (which for me was having a relatively close encounter with a mature buck) was much, much higher. Being able to hunt this much was key for me as I would be able to use that “most recent information” to narrow down and move in for the kill. Now those 2 sits are generally not together or spaced out during the week/weekend so even if I get eyes on one I’m not able to capitalize on it the next hunt and often I find that that deer I saw is off that pattern before I can get back out to hunt. I also hunt only public so I’d imagine I’d have a better shot at the deer still being on that pattern if I hunted private. With 2 sits a week on public, I generally have 1-3 really decent chances (i.e. buck within bow range) at a mature buck each season. Unfortunately, a good shot opportunity may or may not present itself in those 1-3 chances but I can at least say I was in the right spot at the right time. Didn’t get that good shot opportunity this season but can’t complain too much as I only have a one year drought in the mature buck harvests department but still put that same pressure on myself every year to motivate me to get it done on a big buck. Still kick at myself a bit when I fall short of that and ask the important question of why I didn’t get it done, was it something within my control or was it something else? I can usually always think of something I can improve but sometimes those 1-3 chances go wrong by something totally outside of my control (like this year when the neighbor on private took a drive around his property lines at that golden hour on Nov 6th and spooked a buck that was about to follow a doe that had just walked by me at 20 yards - he was at 40 with a severe quartering to and still had to clear some brush). That one haunts me because he was one of the biggest bucks I’ve ever laid eyes on while hunting/scouting. I’m doing my best this offseason to keep the 2, 3 hour periods a week to do scouting to try to get that success rate up because with fewer sits in a season than a lot of guys you gotta make what sits you do get count. Some of the scouting this year in the same areas I hunted made it pretty clear to me that a decent percentage of those sits were just slightly off from where I really needed to be. I chalk that one up to moving to a new state right at the start of the season and not having the boots on the ground time to get my ducks in a row.
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby MOtgrinMI » Tue Mar 07, 2023 4:21 pm

Like many here with young kids, time is extremely limited. If I’m lucky I’ll get 2 sits am or pm for a few hours a week. I’d love to get back to the at least 4 sits a week I had before kids because man was my success rate (which for me was having a relatively close encounter with a mature buck) was much, much higher. Being able to hunt this much was key for me as I would be able to use that “most recent information” to narrow down and move in for the kill. Now those 2 sits are generally not together or spaced out during the week/weekend so even if I get eyes on one I’m not able to capitalize on it the next hunt and often I find that that deer I saw is off that pattern before I can get back out to hunt. I also hunt only public so I’d imagine I’d have a better shot at the deer still being on that pattern if I hunted private. With 2 sits a week on public, I generally have 1-3 really decent chances (i.e. buck within bow range) at a mature buck each season. Unfortunately, a good shot opportunity may or may not present itself in those 1-3 chances but I can at least say I was in the right spot at the right time. Didn’t get that good shot opportunity this season but can’t complain too much as I only have a one year drought in the mature buck harvests department but still put that same pressure on myself every year to motivate me to get it done on a big buck. Still kick at myself a bit when I fall short of that and ask the important question of why I didn’t get it done, was it something within my control or was it something else? I can usually always think of something I can improve but sometimes those 1-3 chances go wrong by something totally outside of my control (like this year when the neighbor on private took a drive around his property lines at that golden hour on Nov 6th and spooked a buck that was about to follow a doe that had just walked by me at 20 yards - he was at 40 with a severe quartering to and still had to clear some brush). That one haunts me because he was one of the biggest bucks I’ve ever laid eyes on while hunting/scouting. I’m doing my best this offseason to keep the 2, 3 hour periods a week to do scouting to try to get that success rate up because with fewer sits in a season than a lot of guys you gotta make what sits you do get count. Some of the scouting this year in the same areas I hunted made it pretty clear to me that a decent percentage of those sits were just slightly off from where I really needed to be. I chalk that one up to moving to a new state right at the start of the season and not having the boots on the ground time to get my ducks in a row.
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby szwampdonkey » Thu Mar 09, 2023 3:17 am

100% public.

I get 2 evening hunts a week after work max. Then prob 2 morning hunts and 1-2 evening hunts on the weekend. Never full days except during my rutcation in Nov which is a week. Based on obligations i often get less hunts on the weekend and sometimes none.

With that amount of hunting in SE WI i’ll get a crack at any old deer prob every other hunt, maybe more. I’ll kill about 2 of those (anterless) a year. But for a mature buck i’ll get maybe 2-3 legit cracks at one a year. Some years more, some less. I’ll kill one about every 3rd year it seems.
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elk yinzer
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Re: Hunting time during season

Unread postby elk yinzer » Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:11 am

The best thing I can recommend is just to be as flexible as your situation allows. I used to have to plan my time off 6 months in advance, and it drove me crazy. I work for and by myself now so I have that flexibility outside of client meetings.

I know deer can be kilt anytime and you can't kill them on the couch, yada yada. But I'm very much of the belief you greatly maximize your chances in cooler weather. For a guy that has to call his shots because of time constraints, that unlocks a lot more potential to be able to flex to the better kill days, period. If you can't, you can't, but it sure is nice when you can.

On the flipside, being flexible with family and work is equally important if you value your sanity. My wife is a saint, but she only has so much time alone with 3 little kids before I better man up and get home. Through trial and error and our personal schedule and circumstances, I've found it works a lot better for us if I hunt Friday evening and Saturday morning, then spend Saturday afternoon with the family versus just hunting all day Saturday. I still get 2 hunts, it just works better. Little stuff like that by the third kid I've figured out that I wish I figured out years back.

So our archery season is 7 weeks long. I'd say typical year I get 30-40 hunts in which I think is pretty good for having a young family (we'll say a hunt = AM or PM, all day = 2 hunts). I get in 2-3 hunts most weekends. We can't hunt Sundays (except one per year). At this stage of the game I rarely would anyway. I get 1-2 hunts in during the week before or after work. Mornings work a lot better for us. I know there are times of year and situations where PM hunts are better, but mornings just work better, like I said flexible works both ways. I take off work for archery rut camp a week, and then usually scatter around 3 or 4 more days I take off during the rut. By rifle season goodwill is running low, it's usually just opener and the weekends for me, maybe sneaking out another day or two. I love to hunt our late season which opens day after Christmas, but by then it's pretty much over for me from a family tolerance standpoint.
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