Deer only coming out at night?

I have a garden including a 120ft row of strawberries. They used to come down and annihilate my sweet potatoes but they haven't disturbed any of the crops for several years, probably close to 10 years.

I've planted some apple trees in the clearing but that will take a few years. They seem to eat up the pears in the same area, but they still come in at night and clean house.
 
most of the primary predators to deer (Humans in most areas) hunt during the day. It is natural that they would become nocturnal because the more nocturnal ones tend to live longer allowing them to breed more, producing a tendency for more nocturnal offspring.

p.s. sorry for pointing out the obvouse :D
 
Deer move at night because of moon, weather, or fear of humans. You can not control 1 and 2. You can mitigate the human pressure issue.
 
I had one large buck that patterned me. He showed up each evening 45 minutes after dark, cameras told on him.

One evening it started to rain about an hour before dark and it rained all night long. I got up and checked the radar and figured it should stop raining after daylight. Thirty minutes or so after daylight here he came.

After him beating me for 6 weeks I put a bullet in front of him to let him know that I finally had won one time. He went back to nocturnal.

If you read the book I mentioned it states that some deer cannot be killed as they only move at night.

There was a very large deer on a ranch that came to watering trough, but only at night. One of the ranch hands figured this out and started covering the trough with a sheet of galvanized tin each evening and uncovering it each morning. One morning after he uncovered the trough, here came the buck.

He felt guilty and let the buck walk and he stopped covering up the water.
 
Looks like a few houses around you. I lived in an area like that for a while, houses/farmland, and a powerline right out back. I and the neighbors thought the deer were completely nocturnal, we sure saw enough of them driving around at night. Some of the whoppers may well be, but when I went night shift at my job the hunting got way better for me. Hunt during the week if you can. I shot quite a few deer between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Sit outside and listen how quiet it is during the week compared to a weekend. Deer really pick up on this. As for deer changing patterns towards the fall, the food supplies and cover change, so the deer change. If you do try hunting during the week and it works out, don't tell anyone. Everybody and their nephew will start doing it in the neighborhood.
 
Luckily I'm the only one hunting these woods within a couple miles. I think I have around 200-300 acres that no one else hunts but most of it is just sparse woods with no activity at all. The only woods I see deer consistently in are those thick woods between the pond and clearing, they love that stuff. Tracks and rubs everywhere you look.

I have a few other spots I'm thinking about hunting this season and I may just put my auto feeder up here and let the deer get comfortable and not shoot at them at all this year. I've got 2 other spots in different counties so I may just hunt that and see if I can get deer to regular my yard again like they did nearly a decade ago.
 
Almost all wild animals are nocturnal, including deer. We see them briefly just after sunrise and then just before sunset. If they stay out all day it usually means they are starving. When I stay up all night (rarely) and hunt hogs from a blind I see many, many deer and all other types of wild animals.
 
They love a full moon -they can feed much better all night then hide all day.
Weather changes -they feed more just before and just after a storm.
A quick hard storm - they knew the apples were knocked off the trees.They would come to my property ,directly to the apple trees ,eat the apples and leave .
You have to learn there habits .Food , weather , hunting pressure ,etc .One friend has done very well on public land by knowing the habits of hunters in detail .Hunters seem to all take coffee breaks at the same time .That's when the deer come out ! The deer have their habits too. learn them.
 
Originally posted by mardanlin:
The only woods I see deer consistently in are those thick woods between the pond and clearing, they love that stuff. Tracks and rubs everywhere you look.
Click to expand...

This kinda confirms my theory that the thick brushy field they cleared may have been a bedding area that is now gone. Rubs many times are territorial and made on the way to and from bedding areas. Subtle changes in habitat can make for big changes in deer movement and habits.
 
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