From our trail camera study we have recorded the date and time of every deer and wolf past the cameras between the end of September and the end of January since 2019. We have subjectively broken the deer past the camera into the following categories. Unknown, these are blurred images because of the speed of the animal, frost or moisture on the lense, or only a partial body in the image where sex and age can not be determined. The fawns and doe determination are self explanatory. We have broken bucks into 1.5 year olds (button bucks, spikes, and young forked horns), 2 to 3 year olds (determined by a combination of body size and antler configuration), and 4 year old and greater (determined by body size and antler configuration, these are the “tanks”). We have also recorded wolves past the cameras.
We have plotted this using military time. The yellow lines on the graph are published times of sunrise and sunset, adjusted for daylight savings time where appropriate. We hunt between the lines.
Apparent in these graphs is the proportion of deer movement in the dark hours, especially just before sunrise and just after sunset. Definitely, deer movement is weighted to just before sunrise. It also shows the timing of buck movement in the daylight, giving you an idea of when to be most productive in the woods. Each year is substantially different, with some year having hardly any deer movement in the daylight hours.