When there's a lot of moon, like right now, deer move mostly at night. The regular pattern, otherwise, is movement at dawn to sunup and then beddie-bye until around mid-day. They get up, pee, stretch, look around, and then usually go back to bed. They then start moving a little before sundown.
Usually.
Mid-day, I like to ease along through brushy land or forest, very slowly. Move quiet, sneaky-snaking until I find a good spot to stand and watch, or sit and watch edges of clearings. Every now and then, Ol' Bucky comes along, checking his turf.
In hilly country, it's common for "real" bucks to bed down just below a crest on the downwind side. That way, they can smell anything bad that's coming from behind them. They'll be somewhere near a saddle in the ridgeline. If you ease along the ridge, into the wind or crosswind, you have a half a chance of kicking bucky out of bed. This all depends on visibility, of course. The tendency of the buck is to run upwind and uphill, since they trust their noses much more than eyes'n'ears.
Not all deer have read my book, "What Deer Do".
Older bucks do learn; they ain't stoopid. Some old mossyhorns will figure out that a home base where people don't hunt is a Good Thing. That place is as likely to be a patch of brush right behind a farmer's barn as anywhere else. Or even a clump of trees/brush in the middle of a field, only coming out at night.
Art
