Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting shooting in low light -- compound versus recurve

i was in my tree stand saturday afternoon late -- it was raining, overcast, and gloomy, and when it was time to come down, I decided to shoot a stump with one of my field points... I drew the bow and... could not see my sight pins through the peep. Good thing there was no deer!! I am either going to have to illuminate my pins or get a wider peep. I think it was light enough for a traditional hunter to still make the shot. What do you do for low light shooting situations?

Two weeks ago I had a doe and fawn ten yards away. I drew the bow and could not see anything through the peep sight even with ten minutes of shooting time left.
GWN

I shoot instinctive with a recurve. If it's light enough to see, it's light enough to shoot. Of course, that's a good way to lose arrows, too. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

The problem can somewhat be ameliorated by getting a larger peep. There are ones with a large apeture that work better in low light. I'm a compound bow hunter of over 20 years, and I had lousy eyesight going in and it's done nothing but get worse. Even 20 years ago, I was drilling out my peep sight to get enough light through so I could shoot. The first solution, therefore, is drill out your peep to a larger diameter or buy a larger peep. Your accuracy will not be adversely affected.

I tried hunting with a no-peep device that fitted behind the rest. I had a hard time seeing anything through it in anything but the brightest conditions. I took it off after a couple of tries.

You can remove the peep altogether. It may take some adjustment to get you sighting in the same place. A kisser might help. There are a bunch of peeps out there; I've tried probably half a dozen, and they all do a lousy job for old eyes. The one I have now is a doughnut-shaped plastic ring about 1/2" in diameter OD.

They use to sell a lens-type bow sight, that a friend of mine used to use. It was just a big lens with the cross-hairs etched on it. He was about the age I am now, and he said it kept him out there a bit longer. He shot with a kisser and no peep.

The problem is simply this: A peep sight is an apeture that lets through only just enough light, the smaller the apeture, the less light that comes through. You also have the light level of the pins to contend with. At dawn and dusk, your eyes are attempting to find the right pupil size that can take in the deer and the pins both, and all this through an attenutating aperture in the peep. At some point, your eyes can no longer split the difference and it's time to pack it up and go in.

I'm 47, and I finally had to give in and call it quits about 10 minutes after sundown. Legal shooting is still effect for another 20 minutes, I've still got plenty of light to get down from my stand, gather up my gear and start heading out, but the chance of me seeing a deer in a peep sight after about sundown +10 is about nil.

My deer didn't even approach me until 20 minutes past sunset. I have yet to see a buck which means they must be totally nocturnal in this area. ( IMO) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />
GWN

I have a similar problem in some of the ravines/woods that I hunt in.
I have drilled out my peep site and also used some white paint to
paint around the edge of the peep site hole, and into the bore
of the peep somewhat. This makes the hole in the peep a bit easier to see and lets in more light. Still, it can be a tough situation, and when the weather is really bad I use end up using my stickbow and shooting instinctively.

One thing to consider in this is stand placement.

As a general rule of thumb, deer are moving from their beds to go feed at sundown. We generally locate our afternoon stands in the staging areas where the deer congregate before dark. If you're like me, you generally put your stand about 10-50 yard from the edge of the fields, well inside the treeline, but far enough back so that you can blend into the foilage and not be skylighted.

One solution to all this may be moving our stands further back in the woods and covering the trails leading to these staging areas. An extra 100 yards in may translate to seeing the deer 20-30 minutes sooner.

That strategy has its own pitfalls. You're leaving a longer scent trail going in and out. You're closer to their beds, so you have to make less noise. However, I've done this successfully in a few instances. The bonus in this is that if the deer have you patterned at stand site A, moving to B will throw them off. I did this 4 years ago at a site where I'd had a bunch of early season confrontations. I moved 100 yards closer to the bed and set up a climbing stand. Sure enough, on opening day of rifle season, I had deer coming up and grouping under my stand, trying to smell if I was back at stand A.

Shaman

It must be an individual thing because i can see my no-peep well after i lose sight of my pins. In actuality i find it almost unbelievable that you could not see the no-peep, where did you have it mounted?

I used a peep, then a NO-PEEP. I like the NO-PEEP in low light thick woods and hog hunting.

pepaw

The no-peep I had was mounted behind the rest. The problem I was having was the no-peep device was a white cylinder, and my eyes could not adjust to see what was inside the cylinder. I could still see the deer outside the white circle, but inside the circle everything was black. In bright sun, everything was fine, but even deep shade with lots of sun poking through was a problem.

I'm 47, and my eyes are just getting a tad old. I'm also verrrry near-sighted, and my prescription reduces everything.

It just dawned on me that we might be talking about different things. I went out and Googled "no-peep" and found a completely different product. The sight I brought up looked quite workable. I may give it a try. The other contraption I had was a crosshair that went behind the rest and you lined up your sight pin with it.

The gizmo I just saw that has concentric rings that you line up looks like it would work wonderfully. I may give it a try.

Buy a big peep or drill it out and shoot with both eyes open. If you close one eye you will not see. Sicero <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I had the same problem, a couple of weeks ago I had a decent buck come it at 7:40, legal shooting time started at 7:30, He stopped at 30 yards, I drew but couldn't see him through the peep, so I had to let down. I went home and thought I would drill out my peep and promptly cut the string. Man I was sick, I had to scramble to find a new string the following week and shoot it in. I did have a larger peep installed, but I think after season is over, I'm going to try shooting without a peep. I'll just need to make sure I have a very consistent anchor point.