Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Hunting in the dark

Hi guys, on another thread there was a discussion of lighted nocks and night hunting came up. I hunt so much at night that there are weeks of sleeping during the day and hunting 3rd shift for us. Hunting at night has a level of peculiar effects and exciting characteristics that is a bit addictive.

In Africa we can hunt any big game 24 hours a day. So it is an exciting way to hunt for people that come from a place where you cannot hunt in the dark. The ability to judge distance is very different in the dark, things seem closer then they are, much like the difficulty judging distance across a lake. There is an erie sense of paranoia at times walking through the bush where large predators live too.

So how do you hunt in the darkest blackest night? What gear do you need? Most people would instantly default to 3rd Gen night vision or thermal imaging. That could be many thousands of dollars in equipment. An unrealistic expense when you can do this just as well or, ...actually better with a couple hundred bucks in gear.

I'm not sure I care to advertise for the folks making this equipment, so I will tell you what it is and you can find it on line from one of the several makers of the gear.

Lets assume for the conversation your hunting hogs, or any other night creature that is attracted to a bait. There are motion sensing lights that either hang from a tree branch, attach with magnets, or mount exactly like a trail camera. These are placed in a location you expect animals to arrive. Like a food source or a water hole. Possibly even used on game trails.

These lights have a green beam that is,... or depending upon the Mfg could very powerful. However it's absolutely invisible to animals. Everything you see in the dark has a greenish hue, much like night vision has. The better designs have a sensitive motion trigger with a very dim light that increases in intensity over 60 seconds until its fully bright.

From a tree stand with archery gear your target is illuminated as clear as daytime. You needed lighted sight pins with a dimmer switch. You cannot see the animal if the pin brightness is to much. Just enough power to see the tip of the pin.

There are Phosphorescent Peep sights to allow you to charge them before the shot and see through the glowing peep perfectly. Ive found that with practice and good form you will be looking through the standard peep anyway just fine. There is also the option of using the Sight with the lighted "no peep" in the housing. Then when you see the black spot in the green background your perfect! This is my choice for night hunting. The same dimmer is used for the sight pins and the no peep.

With a firearm it's much easier. From 200 yards away you can see the crosshairs perfectly looking into the green haze illuminating the animal. Additionally you can buy crazy powerful green beam light for your scope or piccatiny rail. Predator calling is amazing with this system. It's easily better then night vision, the quality of the image is as good as your scope is. I have a powerful light that screws into my stabilizer hole on my bow. It uses a pressure switch on the grip to turn it on. With this light alone I can shoot accurately to 30-50 yards on rabbit sized targets! While in total darkness. I draw the bow and point above the target, slowly lowering the dim outer circle of the ultra bright green light onto the animal. The animal is already in the green glow of the motion sensing light, so this bright light is not even noticed. Once the beam is full on the animal with the lighted pin, its as easy as shooting on a bright sunshiny day.

It's quite a new experience for those how have not done this to sit in a tree stand past midnight in the dark hearing the owls, and leaves rustling, etc. Then while in the black dark state, you see the faint haze of green on...... something is coming towards the spot. As you stare into the dark the form of a bobcat, wild pig, bear, jackal, hyena, or any species of deer of African game. Something is coming walking through the area. It then is there standing in plain sight either from your tree stand or from a distance through your rifle scope. They simply have no idea that light is on, it 100% invisible to them.

Some animals react more or less to red or green, I've found green works by far better then Red, but coyotes( canines) seem to be more easily tricked with red.

It's quite a rush to be sitting in total darkness for a couple hours and then see that faint green haze of light on. You know something it looming in the shadows just out of sight.

That sounds fun as heck!

Outrageous!

I agree...sounds like a blast. I need to look further into this method. I used to have a place to hunt that if I would have had a setup like this, it would have been a game changer.

Green light hits feral pigs here, about 75% of the time they are gone before you can release.

Red light works MUCH better. But tahts here.

Used to have a place full of pigs year round, walked at night with the recurve... in the dark instinctive shooting worked REALLY well. And sometimes they had no clue, as they grunt and squeal anyway, and you could get off multiple kill shots... I think 5 was teh most I killed out of a group at one time.

I have night hunted for 40 years -fox calling as a teen in the 70's.

Night time hog hunting in Florida is a common thing -they rarely come out until late at night at our lease -most of the "night hunters" are gone by 10p and the hogs have adapted to that.
I have a cool set-up at my lease spot ---we have our own area nobody else comes onto your spot--- I built a shooting house that's 7' off the ground -legs 1' in the ground treated 4x4's and is 8'x8' square 7' headroom .

I use a motion detecting/solar powered 60 LED light actually three of them now and a texas boars 60yd. too 120yd. light . It has two green and one red lense .The motion light is to alert me that I have a customer.

Hogs will get smart when hunted quite a bit -I've seen them 60 yards away at the feeder -they will not snort -fight or make a peep and will listen for the slightest sound . If I make a peep they walk away and won't come back that night.

Early in the night I like to reduce the number of coons/possums with a bow -from a hang-on treestand -20-25yards shots.

Here's a list of some ideas & stuff I use .

We have bear problems -they tear down the feeders and rip open the motor etc. ruining them.
If you have trees like we do I hang a cheap walmart hang-on stand -$38 sale price- about 10' up -cut a small hole in the foot platform -put a 31 gallon galvanized trashcan on the platform with hole in bottom -funnel and thrower mounted to bottom.
Wrap tree with aluminum roofing flashing so bear can't climb tree. It will hold 150lbs of corn .
I have three of them going -it keeps big boars from running other hogs off and 450lbs. of corn will last a month.
I can kill one or two pigs off that much corn if I want to .

Lights -look at harbor freight for Bunker Hill- 60 led motion solar light -only $34 locally here , $59 @ amazon.
I put green cellophane over the light or red -white will work too but they have to get use to it.

Texas boars -go to their site.

Another good set-up is a roll barrel - google "olive barrel" . Many farm feed stores have them for feed storage .
The barrel will have a large diameter lid so it is easy to pour 50lb. sack of corn in .
Tie the barrel off between trees or an overhead limb so that it can't be wrapped around anything -put a swivel or two on the rope. Drill small holes in the barrel so that a few kernels of corn come out each time it's rolled . Hogs will learn how to use it immediately -have a motion light or two on it .
Also a small bell or a can with a rock in it -that way you can hear them rolling the barrel getting corn.
Hogs sometimes get in a feeding frenzy with these barrels -they roll it and eat the kernels that came out -another hog will roll it and do the same . They'll scurry around wanting to be behind the barrel to get the corn then the barrel will roll side ways and they keep going and going .

If the wind is still or not switching around this is a great way to stalk the roll barrel feeder area in the dark . They make a lot of noise when 6-8 hogs are playing roll the corn dispenser and seem to drop their guard - I have arrowed one hog doing this .
Very exciting sneaking up a step at a time -I move pretty fast in order to keep the wind from changing - but once I stand fully up and take a deep breath and picked the target -motion light goes off -hogs move light comes on draw and shoot.
I've had the wind turn on me twice and lost my opportunity that's a bummer after driving 65 miles to the lease -mostly use rifle now.

I agree JJHack -night hunting is a lot of fun .