Over the course of this last Kodiak bear hunt several things were used that were new to my operation in general. Some of them need to be listed for good and bad.
To start the whole idea of bear hunting is watching the bears until the right bear makes the wrong mistake and can be stalked. A bear moving a lot on the highest slope of a steep mountain is safe until he does something different. Good glass makes all the difference.
We had two Vortex spotters, a Razor 20-60x85 angled and a Diamondback 20-60X60 straight.
http://www.cameralandny.com/optics/vortex.pl?page=vortexrazorhttp://www.cameralandny.com/optics/vortex.pl?page=vortexdiamondback20-60x60The former (Razor) was a truly great glass and we had enough detail to make very fine decisions based on what we could see from literal miles away. The eye cups were left in and allowed for a greater field of view when trying to locate bears on the mountainside.
The Diamondback is a "price point" spotter and was not expected to be anywhere near the Razor. It was not. However the real intended use for the scope was to determine if a sheep would be good enough to cross a big valley to see if it was worthy. And do so in a backpackable unit. It will take some more looking, but it probably made that grade.
The Dakota Tripod
http://www.cameralandny.com/tripods/vortex.pl?page=vortexdakotatripodheld the Vortex Razor spotter all day, ever day and worked extremely well, regardless the price. It is a real deal because it has been discontinued as a total revamp of the Vortex line. I have used it quite a bit for photo work and spotting and it is perfectly functional for a full-size, full-weight tripod. It is no way a mountain hunting unit!
IdahoPro was using a light Slik tripod with a bino adaptor that allowed him to set his tension exactly where he wanted and then gently move the field. Then he would search it completely and carefully before moving the field again. Between movements he would not touch the glasses at all.
Several folks have posted about the method previously and I had dismissed it because I had always believed you use the sweet spot in the middle of the glass, even though I have used Zeiss ClassiCs for over 30 years.
He had some issues with getting things set exactly right and knocked his glasses off the adaptor a few times, but that was during 10 long days of steady glassing. That was with his 12x50 Razors. They are mighty fine glass!
http://www.cameralandny.com/optics/vortex.pl?page=vortexrazorhd12x50_2013modelWe also used a Minox BN7X50DC Bino for spotting from the boat, general marker duty, and pinpointing bears on the mountain. The internal compass allows you to give a compass heading and hand the bino over to the person trying to figure out what you mean by the "round alder patch by the rock face" and the tilt reading allows even more refinement, especially when bears move so fast that it is often a situation where the bear is only seen for a few minutes before disappearing. We did not use them much for that and as the trip wore on we had plenty of well-known spots to use as reference.
Gotta run, more later.
