Well....my wife will tell you "too much", my boss will tell you "too much" and I will tell you "not enough!"
I have roughly 10 vacation days to burn and 8 holiday days during our deer season this year, on top of the weekends. I can also hunt a few nights after work because I live on my hunting property....at least until daylight savings time kicks and I loose that hour
mad: always when the hunting tends to be starting to show signs of picking up).
Now in general - my family knows.....come October....Daddy is BUSY! I have a wedding anniversary (our 20th this year - I got married before I was a deer hunter - if I knew then what I know now - it would have been September or January) and 2 kids birthdays in there along with the typical holiday requirements......but other than that you better schedule time with Daddy WELL IN ADVANCE if you need him in October, November or December.
My wife claims she becomes a "Whitetail Widow" - there are times she claims she only knows i'm alive because some of my things get moved!
Now I won't hunt early October - all I seem to accomplish is stinking the place up and educating the does....bad, bad, bad! Once we get closer to Halloween or a cold front comes in then I will hunt. Early November tends to be hit or miss - I will be in a tree but how much will depend on what I am seeing. General firearms season - I am a vampire! My family only sees me once it's dark outside! I will take off the entire general firearms season.....this is when the bucks seem to have bred their local does and they start expanding their search.....my property doesn't house many older resident bucks so this is "don't miss" time on my place. Normally by the close of firearms season I am done....I have my does in the freezer and I am down to hunting for my buck for the wall. I will hunt weekends into December and complain the entire time....I hate being cold....and yes essentially below freezing is cold (I'm a pansy and I know it). I will only hunt late in December with my crossbow and when the weather is nice. I will hunt the warmest part of the day and say heck with the rest of it....based on what I see of my deer traffic...they agree. Once I have a full freezer and am hunting for a buck on the wall - it becomes a matter of motivation for me.....and sometimes just getting up out of a warm bed to go out into the December cold just doesn't have much appeal to me to be honest.
I will also tell you that I try not to shoot a doe until later in the hunting season....I use does as buck bait until the window of opportunity starts to close and then I'll smack a few for the freezer.....deer is the primary red meat in my household and my place will support removing a few without setting the population into a tail spin. I also try to shoot larger does as that way I don't need to shoot as many. We actually take an inventory before deer season starts and I am essentially given a "meat quota".
So early and late in the hunting season - I'm an opportunist. I try to focus my efforts from Halloween thru mid December with an all out assault the last 2 full weeks of November. My activity level closely mirrors what tends to be the "rutting" activity curve you see published.
