They usually go for easily digestible shoots, young leaves, fresh grasses, fruits, fungi, and soft twigs as their food source. "As we would expect, studies show that deer movement peaks just before and after dawn and just before and after dark. But they will not be far away… Roe deer are crepuscular, which essentially means that … 2:00 PM is the most likely time for white-tails to be asleep. Deer move away from gun-hunted areas, go into thick cover and move a lot less. One of the most important things to know about deer hunting is when to hunt. White-tailed deer hide in cover during most of the day. Understanding Daily Deer Movement by TR Michels article copyright. How To Get Deers To Come Out During The Day? When you’re hunting you need to know where the deer are likely to be during legal shooting hours. But those studies also show considerable deer movement at mid-day. It’s interesting to know whether deer go anywhere to do some activity or hid somewhere intentionally. So they often rest during this time, although they will still feed, but not move very far. Where do deer go during the day? With these formidable abilities plus the specific behaviors that they have developed to protect themselves makes it a difficult to lure them out. They normally hide in dense cover throughout the most of the daylight hours. Diefenbach found that even on public land, where hunter density is very high, deer move to thick, unapproachable (based on wind and habitat) cover. There might be other factors that can be responsible for deer movement during day time such as weather. This might be a swamp, thick brush and bushes, in tall grass, in pine thickets, in a brier patch, anywhere they cannot be seen or in dense woods where they are inconspicuous. "Deer do have a mid-day activity period, before, during and after the rut," Steffen said. Deer aren't strictly nocturnal, it depends on the climate. In very hot climates they don't want to be too active in the middle of the day since it would waste too much energy. This explains why you can have an area where roe deer can be seen at dawn and dusk, but during the day, the area seems devoid of them.