Best Evening Hunt Location - Woods or Fields?

[Fred McIntire]

I was wanting to get some input from the "Experts". Where have you found the greatest success in hunting the late afternoon to sunset? I have been hunting a pipeline clearing that runs through the woods without too much success. I see deer in the morning and early afternoon; however, I am not seeing any deer in the evening. I am beginning to think that I may want to move out to the edge of the woods/field.

Thanks for your input.

[01magnatec]

Move to a food source. Don't hog it though, if it's a field and you sit on the edge you'll get busted while leaving.  Sit as far inside the woodline as you can but make sure you can still see the field.  Watch from a distance before you make any permanent moves.
It's hard to pattern them right now but when you start to note some key times that they are feeding and where they are coming from, you can keep moving closer and closer until your within shooting distance.
No matter where you go, if you move right in on their territory without seeing what deer use what trails, this could lead you into trouble because of getting busted.
If you get busted once, the deer will constantly hang up on the edge until they see it is safe or until it is dark.  If you get busted twice, the deer will turn nocturnal. Feeding only at night and bedding down before the suns up.

It's the time of year where you have to play their game. Calls, rattles, scents are great!!!! Especially "the Can"!!!!

[longwinters]

The first few days I would hunt the field.  Then move deeper into the woods.  If there are does in the field the bucks will come a lookin there.

long

[Daveinthebush]

If your looking for does or young bucks, I would stay in from the edge of the field a few yards.

If you want the big boys, I would back off even farther, up to 50 along a brushy or section of heavy cover with a lightly used trail leading to the food scource.  Heavily used trails usually mean young deer and does, look for one off to the side a ways an not used so much.

[WD45]

Well here is my 2 sawbucks.....
Deer like clover and alfalfa and a field that has one or the other is always a good place to hunt. Especially watch the edges of the fence lines just inside the field and just inside the woods.  They seem to like to travel the fence lines and then find the spot where they like to cross which is not always the easiest place for them to get across either. Watch those places where they cross the fence ( now this is assuming some of the fields you hunt are fenced hay fields ). I have seen them in the fields in the morning and in the evenings. I think it depends a lot on the weather and other food sources.  Also look close along the edges of the tree line where tree
branches overhang the fence and field for scrape activity

[SingleShotShorty]

I have several good food plots that I hunt but I never set up on the edge of the field, I put my stand or ground blind approx. 50 to 75 yards in the timber. I have found that most of the time bigger bucks will move into the field to feed right at dark.  The reason I set up back in the woods is two fold first the deer will stage back into the woods waiting to come out and second you will have a chance at a shot before you lose good shooting light. Just one old deer hunters opinion. Good Luck this season.

[Fred McIntire]

Thanks for the info guys.

I think I need to get back to the basics. Do a little more scouting, find the food plots, and adjust my hunting accordingly. It sure is easy to fall into a pattern be it productive or not.