Ok follow me on this one - and I may be crazy and dead wrong but... You know how everyone says that too much pressure in a certain area will make the deer become nocturnal right? Well I'm guessing this is because the deer know that something is disturbing the woods during the day and not at night and therefore there feel "safer" at night. Well what if a man was to go to his hunting spot during the night time hours like a month or 2 before season and disturb the area somewhat at night only and leave it completely calm during the day, would this force the deer to move and become active more during the daytime hours? Just a thought I had.
I applaud you for thinking outside the box, but I don't think it would work. One big reason deer feel safer at night is because they know most predators night vision is not the best. I believe they would just vacate your property, not move more during the day. I could be wrong here, but it's not an experiment I'd be willing to try on my property. It is an interesting idea though.
I thought the same last year about checking cameras at night. Most deer aren't run from your area due to being directly jumped most smell humans after the fact and avoid that area. Give it a try and let us know how it goes, you might be the one that figures out something new. I'm just not brave enough.
I agree with R4ce. I believe it would push them off the property unless you have 2,000 acres all to yourself.
Well yeah what I mean is like checking your cameras at night or anything else you might be doing at your property. That way your scent and disturbance occurs at night and not during daylight hours. If we did all our "work" on the hunting site at night instead of during the day I could only see it helping instead of hurting and keep them from going nocturnal... possibly.
I know several guys that check their "simple" cams during the day and their internal woods cams at night. Their thought process is that the deer should be out of their bed and into the ag fields. Its worked well for them, but its still pressure. No matter if you check at night or during the day its still pressure.
I think your best bet is to keep your cameras on the outside fringes of your farm and check them every few weeks. If you have one in the heart of your farm check it every six weeks. As far as disturbing it at night. There are a few of our farms that guys have permission to coon hunt at night. I have never noticed it bothering the deer. With that being said I think the deer are smarter than we give them credit for. I think the know the difference in what you are doing in the woods. They understand the pressure of coon hunters just like they understand the pressure of farmers. I think if you go in there every night you will do way more harm than good and see way less day time movement.
So I guess my next question(s) would be: Is making deer become nocturnal flawed thinking/not real or what makes deer become completely nocturnal? If daytime activity makes them become completely nocturnal - then wouldn't night time activity make them become non nocturnal (if you will)?
Deer become nocturnal bc of pressure.... period. Trying to flip flop it doesn't work unless you have THOUSANDS of acres that only you can control. If your 50-150 acres isn't pressured much it wont matter bc they will still receive pressure on all the neighboring farms. Deer are on their feet a lot during the day, they just don't wander around like during the rut. Unless you know how to successfully hunt beds you would never see this. They tend to move more in distance at night bc its cooler, they've been fairly stationary all day, less pressure, and they need to feed.
In my opinion pressure only comes into play if you get busted a few times. Me and 2 others hunt my small property a ton and out of all the hunts last year there were only 3 times we didn't see deer. I think I was busted just once last year so I'm not sure what to believe. Out of my 15 years of bowhunting, I've always hunted a single location for the entire year and I wouldn't consider any year that I've over pressured deer. From what I've experienced when I get busted by a deer, they flee the area but don't leave their home range. I've seen the same deer the next day...so with that being said, my experience is that deer go nocturnal due to the moonlight and change in daylight rather than human activity.
i like to check my cams in the middle of the day unless your cam is set up in a bedding area you wont bother them
Pressure is an interesting topic. It comes in different forms at different times of the year with different results. Human scent or pressure is not an automatic negative. I have fruit trees in my yard and I am located in a lake subdivision. We walk in our yard, cars are everywhere, other houses, but the deer come and eat the fruit. Numerous people on here have legal bait stations they replenish all the time with big buck pictures to show the positive results. I have a feeling checking trail cameras hurts maybe a little, but I don't think it is devasting. I just keep them on the fringe. Hunting pressure is different for deer. They feel it and react. They have felt the pressure here for over 4 million years (north america approx.) and realize how to cope. During hunting season I do move or add treestands during the night before it rains.
Mature deer are instinctively driven by survival (and rare moments of procreation). Their instincts make them move more freely at night due to lessoned danger not because of simply human intrusiveness. Honestly if it was this easy to manipulate their survival instincts I don't think we would all love the challenge of hunting because their would be none.
Pressure in itself isn't always what will drive deer to be nocturnal or push them off a certain property. It depends on what type of pressure. If they are busted and realize there is a predator in their area they will flee and won't come back until they feel it's safe again. Simply seeing or hearing a human will generally not cause that. In fact, I feel like they are curious about some of our activities. I have had several occasion where I have been working on my tractor putting in food plots or mowing. I have pictures of me working on the trail cam and less than an hour later I have deer checking out the work I did. So, to me human presence alone is not the driving factor, but more the threat of danger.
I mean I understand what you all are saying. I just meant like instead of having daytime intrusion (which people say turns the deer nocturnal) just have nighttime intrusion, when you have to be in there anyway, and that will lessen the chances of turning the deer nocturnal. I didnt mean to go in every night with the sole intention of disturbing the area... And lets also not pretend like deer are that hard to manipulate. We put out food, scents, mock scrapes, and all kinds of things to "trick" deer. While I agree with you tynimiller, I must also point out that as humans we can basically manipulate anything on the earth. If we as humans did not want hunting to be a challenge, we could herd deer up just as we have done with cattle or any other stock animals.
