If your there before sun up. Do you typically stay 3-4 hours? Longer if you see activity? Shorter if you see nothing? I guess there is no real rule to this is there? Go out in the am for a few hours, then leave and come back in the evening? Lets here some of your theories .....
For me, I sit as long as time permits when considering family, work, etc. I've sat from 5am to 5pm before(not easy). I've also sat for just a few hours after work before the sun went down. Activity always helps on those long sits. E
I am lucky enough to live on the land I hunt (100 acres of oak forest!!!) so I wake up around 5am and get to my stand usually about 1/2 hr before sunrise. Usually I sit for 4 hours but if there's nothing after 3 hrs I just cut it short and walk back to the house. As for the evenings, I hit the stands about 4pm and stay till sunset. For me, anything more than 4 hrs is a stretch
I usually try and sit around 5 hours in the afternoons, and in the morning I usually stay until 10 or 11. If I am seeing activity, or have trail cam pics around noon, I will stay as long as possible.
During the earlier season (till mid-october) I hunt either in the morning generally till 9:30-10, or in the evening from 2/3ish till dark or I do what I did today and hunted the morning came home and ate and regrouped and then headed back out. I've never done an all day sit but I plan on it this year. I don't know how I'll fare though. This morning I was thinking there was no way I could ever sit that long and I was ready to leave the woods at 8. But this afternoon I was in the zone and didn't want to leave at all. I'm very picky about my spots. Sometimes I'll sit just because I like the spot in the woods, there doesn't have to be deer there, although it certainly helps.
From later Oct through around Thanksgiving time I will sit from sun-up until about noon...take 1-2 hr break...and then go back out for afternoon. If I had more patience and a better back I would sit the entire day.
Most of my hunts are after work. I sit from 3:30-4 to dark. On Saturdays, for the first 3 (Oct 1st, 8th, 15th) I'll sit till 10 or so, unless it's a nice morning, then I might sit till 11 or noon. I then head back out at 3 or so.
3 hours morning and evening until Oct 20 then I bump it up to longer sits I don't hunt much in the AM until then either :
1 hour before sun-up (just because I love to hear the world waking up) until 11 or so, then out by 2.30 until dark. Weekends are all day gig's unless there's something we can't miss, ya know like a weekend getaway .............
I hunt a lease with some other people. Go in at dark, leave at dark. That way, when the other guys climb down at 1 or 2, I can shoot the deer they drive to me But even if no one else is there that day, I still do an all day sit. If I get a day to hunt, I don't want to think about, "well, what would have happened if I hadn't gotten down at 1 for some lunch" the next day.
If I'm in my ole man climber I'll stay all day.I'll heavy chain and lock that ole boy to a tree and hunt that spot 2 or 3 days.Then its moving time.Not far,maybe 150 yards at most and start all over again. Its alot of work and alot of pain for me to get all set up(numb from neck up,hurts from neck down)so I have a habit of cronic ''this spot is good enough''...but one never knows????? Why do novices get ''lucky''?Expieranced hunters take them out and put them''there''.Some place they would never feel good hunting themselves.What happens''they get lucky''!!!!!!! I regress!!!
1 hour is all it takes to get to my stand shoot my doe with fawns and get back to the truck. Ninja Style!
I used to stay all day but now that I'm older I'll stay 3-4 in the morning and 3-4 in the afternoon. Unless I feel really good about a spot I'll stay the day.
I sat this morning from 6am until 11am, last week I sat 6am until 1pm. There's a lot of different factors that affect how long I hunt.
