Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Patterns...

Behind our house is a feeder that we see 5 to 10 deer on daily.We have a camera on it to record the times. I have been trying for months to determine a pattern for when they feed. Moon, barometric pressure, and weather don't seem to matter. It is random as hell. But what I have noticed is there are times that seem to capture more photos than others. 8:30-10:30AM , 4:00-6:00PM, and all during the night. I checked these times on some of our other cameras at other locations and they seem about the same. Anyone else tried to put a pattern to the feedings?

Yes, with no luck. They seemed to be random. Only luck I've had patterning deer has been on trails. Don't know what the difference is.

They eat when they are hungry, I think most people overthink it.

I bought three time lapse game cams. Going to try and pattern the plot activity and/or eliminate less productive areas.

You might get some sort of pattern now coming to a plot , field or lick. However that can change this time of year since the season and foods are changing and they are going into Fall/Winter patterns. They are very hard to pattern in Dixie because of changing food and vast acreages of timber. Not as easy down here as they make it sound in magazines and on horn porn TV.

Man I had a deer a couple of years ago that was a damn camera hero as a 3.5 year old. Daylight pics out of the ying-yang. I do like I always do and kept most of them....

Enter the next year. He is now 4.5 years old. A little more secretive, not as prone to daylight pictures, etc. I had a daughter that was going to be born on Jan 2nd (c-section), so I knew that I had to make him roll over and play dead before rut. Fun fun fun. So, I start pouring over all of the daylight pictures from the year before. I'm talking everything from the wind direction, speed, barometric pressure, moon phase, weather frontal conditions, you name it. I had like 300 pictures with which to try to do my analysis with from the year before..and then a hundred or so pictures of him from the current year (I was starting this in like December of that year)...and I came up with nothing. Nada. Zero.

No rhyme or reason...other than he got up on his feet alot more in the month of January (which we all know anyway) in the daylight.

Like someone else said...I think that SOB came when he got hungry.

I even went as far as to put 4 cameras on a single tree in the middle of the field to try to determine a predominant direction that the deer came into the field from...and came up with: The SOB came from where he wanted to, when he wanted to. North, South, East, and West.

I got very lucky and very blessed to be able to take that deer in mid December before my daughter was born.

My point is: I don't really think that you can "patten" some deer. Conversely, you can pattern some deer very well. It all depends on the deer, in my opinion.

I know that lots of guys disagree with this...but I run my trail cameras during season. A lot. They will show you when they want to die. I promise.

I've observed deer in agricultural fields in AL for days, and they hardly ever enter at the same time or place. Trail cams show the same thing. Even the nocturnal bucks are all over the place at different times and coming from different directions. You just got to be where they are coming from on that particular day. You sure as heck can't pattern southern deer.

As far as general feeding patterns you're spot on. I see more activity between 8:30-10:30 am and the last hour of day light than any other time.

I had 6 different shooters patterned up until about 2 weeks ago. Had stands set up to hunt etc. These bucks were showing up mostly mornings during shooting light at least 4 out of 7 days. Now...maybe once per week during shooting hours but still 5-6 days a week but later in the evening and earlier in the morning. Two of the 4 areas are clover fields. Not positive why but they aren't hitting the clover as hard as they were all summer...My guess b/c is white oaks are starting to drop, bean fields are being cut, corn we've planted is now mature, etc.

I still feel like I have a pretty decent chance of killing one, but if our season had opened mid Sept. or early Sept. my chances would have been a lot better.

Trail cameras has been the death of several deer on our walls. Scouting without intruding. I placed them on plots so I can drive to them as normal and not intrude past where they are used to me being. Time and travel direction is key.

Matt is right on, foods changing on a daily basis now, by Oct. 15 it is nearly impossible to truly patteren a buck in the Heart of Dixie. Can be done around ag fields and plots to some extent in very early season, but in the big woods ALL bets are off. After a week or two of 4 wheelers, cam checkin' stinking up stands, it's over period IMO.

yep.. I'll be pulling my cameras Oct. 14th/ 15th and will not be putting them out again until around the 25th of December and will only check those when I'm hunting that particular spot. I've learned my lesson...

Came across this, that agrees with our prime time estimates. Afternoons have always been my favorite. One of my favorite ways to hunt is to ease in mid day, find fresh sign, and hunt it till dark. LOL..It helps with sitting around the campfire at night and drinking as well.

That chart has more to do with the number of vehicles on the road vs how active the deer are at certain times. Tons more cars on the road from 4pm to 9pm than between 4am and 9am, hence the collisions are higher in the evening.

Just read a great article on qdma.com that did a study on patterns of 4.5 yr old bucks. Very interesting.

Yep, you gotta have cars on the road to have DVCs as they call them.

I don't run many cameras now, but when I did they were moultries with baro and temp on each pic. After looking at 1000s of these I determined that baro around 30 and temp under 50 seemed to increase activity more so than other times.

I agree with the cars on the road being a factor. But that doesn't explain why their is twice as many accidents between 4-6PM as their is between 6-8AM. Those two time frames are pretty similar in regards to traffic.