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Hunt Friday, Because it’s Farthest From the Weekend
I know the title sounds confusing, but read on and you’ll catch my drift. When I attended the Southeast Deer Study Group meeting this year in North Carolina, one of the most interesting presentations was from a graduate student from Auburn University named Kevyn Wiskerchen. Kevyn captured a representative sample of free-ranging bucks living in Alabama to track their movements during the hunting season. He put tracking collars on each captured buck. The collars allowed him to know if a deer was active and moving or if they were bedded. His data showed that deer movement during daylight hours was consistently better on Fridays than any other day of the week. Why? He believed it was due to the hunting pressure in the area.
When you think about when the majority of hunters spend their time in the woods, they typically hunt Saturday and Sunday. Deer are quick to recognize hunting pressure and will hold near thick cover when they know they are being chased. After the weekend hunters leave the woods, it takes several days for deer to return to more daylight activity. Friday is when the woods have typically been hunter-free for the longest period of time. Hopefully now you understand why I titled this blog the way I did.
If you ever watch the show called Thirteen produced by Drury Outdoors, they mention you should not waste your time as well as avoiding your best spots during this part of October. This holds true for what days to hunt. If you can only hunt on Saturday and Sunday on public land, the best advice I can provide is to wait until the rut is farther along and get away from common public access points. Finding rubs and scrapes are not very good indicators of where deer will spend their time after being heavily pressured. In terms of where to find unpressured bucks, the farther away from the road, the better.
The weather has been slightly above average and it doesn’t look like there will be a major cool down or a weather front hitting the Midwest within the next week. If you only have a limited number of vacation days, your hunting time will be better utilized the first Friday in the week of November. The bucks will be looking for does and you have a great chance of catching a buck with his guard down.
-Tim Neuman, Wildlife Biologist
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Comments (1)
I have known this to be true, my job affords me to hunt middle to the end of a week. And usually the only soul in camp, I would see deer acting quite a bit more casual than one normally would. The only down side is Hunting alone and if you get one on the ground it’s all on you.
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