![]() It’s important to note, however, that deer aren’t robots. Countless deer movement studies have shown this widespread, behavioral trait, from North to South. It just means they are most active during dawn and dusk, and that’s when they’ll cover the greatest distance during a day’s time. That’s not to say you can’t see deer moving right in the middle of the day, or that they aren’t up and walking around in the middle of the night. They spend the majority of the day in thick cover, carrying out a combination of finishing the previous night’s meal and resting, and later that evening they do just the opposite, moving to a desirable food source where they will spend time feeding and resting again. We do this because it’s the time of day when the odds are most in our favor.Ī typical day in the life of a deer looks like this: In the morning hours, when most of us are just waking up or finishing that first cup of coffee (refer back to that mental-wellness comment), deer are generally moving from their nighttime feeding location back to a chosen bedding area. Deer are crepuscular, which is a fancy way of saying they are most active during those twilight hours of dawn and dusk, which is when most deer hunters, including myself, are out trying to bag a deer. However, deer aren’t wide-eyed and bushy-tailed all day and don’t rely on a solid eight hours of sleep every night like we do. This daily change certainly affects our behavior, physical attributes and even mental wellness, and of course it impacts deer as well, such as their vision. ![]() Why was I consistently in this predicament? The natural rhythm of light and dark every 24-hour period affects most living things, including animals, plants and even microrganisms. Fortunately, the National Deer Association (NDA) advocated for change and that regulation has since been altered to align with every other state, allowing for hunting hours to extend an additional 30 minutes before sunrise and after sunset. I had to decide whether or not I should break a long-standing New York law which outlined hunting hours as “sunrise to sunset,” because, predictably, I’d be presented with shot opportunities outside of legal hunting time. ![]() Up until the 2021 season, I routinely found myself in an ethical and legal pickle pretty much every time I went deer hunting in my home state. The mature buck stepped into my shooting lane, broadside, within easy bow range – and I just couldn’t bring myself to draw back and shoot.
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