Early or late in the season?

[model 70]

Gonna take a week off to hunt deer this year. My question is if I should take time off for hunting early in the season or later? The area I plan to hunt is in the sierras and runs from september 24th to october 30th. I know that earlier in the season, it's still in the mid-upper 80's and really dusty. This area also gets alot of pressure from other hunters. When would you think would be best to take time off?

[Lilred]

I dont know if this is possible fer ya, but what I do is spread my days out. I take 2 weekdays in muzzleloader, the first day, second Saturday (doe day), a few days at Christmas and the last 2 days of firearms season. This dont include all the other Saturdays i try to hunt, but usually wind up not bein able to cause I caint find a babysitter. If they put up w/ my daughter all week, they usually dont want no parts of her over the weekend lool....she really is a good kid dont git me wrong..she'll just run you ragged iffin you let her.

If you caint spread yer days out..I would pick a week closest to the beginning of the rut..best chance of an ole buck gittin dumb...even with huntin pressure.

[TreeDoc]

What Zone are you headed to?

Aside from the chance of bagging an early season Buck on the opener, I'd lean toward as late in the season as possible where you'll see the biggest weather change if your lucky. Those Buck get stupid and make fatal mistakes when there chasin' tail during the rut.

I just got back from 4 days of "A" Zone punishment on a potentially great property. Lots of Doe....LOTS!! We also saw maybe 7 or 8 decent Forky's but on this ranch we're limited to 3x or better. I usually hunt it later in the season and we always see more Bucks.