Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Green/Red rifle lights at night?

My nighttime hunting experiences are fairly limited thus far, and this pertains mostly to hog hunts, but have you guys found some big variation in how some animals react to green or red lights? I've often stuck a green light with rail mount in my hunting bag for the last couple of years and have used it to light up a few smaller hogs just after dark, as well as some coons. I've also tried it out multiple times when walking out on deer that were feeding after it got totally dark (not advocating shooting nighttime deer with a light, obviously). Most times, I get barely any reaction to the beam. It's not the same thing as hunting with dedicated digital night vision or thermal, obviously, but it can be a useful tool if you don't want to pack a bunch of equipment and plan to maybe hunt for varmints for a bit after your deer hunt is over.

Couple hoglets we lit up right behind the house about two years ago (light visible on forearm of rifle):



BUT, last Friday night I was going after these two older boars and thought I'd take a lightweight rifle with green light and see if I couldn't cross paths with them. I bumped into both of them at different times, at ranges of 50-80 yards. In both instances, I spotted them with a thermal monocular, pointed my rifle in their general direction, and hit the switch on the green light. Both times they immediately bolted, about like you had thrown a bucket of cold water on them. No chance for a shot at all, not even a 1-2 second pause when the light came on. This was new to me. Coons and other varmints in my path couldn't have cared less about the light that night. Was it perhaps previous experiences with lights that had the pigs skittish like that, or do some animals just see the light better than others?






I did go back with digital night vision the next evening and got set up before dark to wait on them. They are now coyote cuisine in the pasture. Same pigs I mentioned the other day in the 2023 Predator/Varmint kill thread.

I hunted coyotes both here in Oklahoma where I had to use a shotgun and in Texas where anything goes. We used red lights and I called a lot of coyotes in close enough to kill them with a shotgun.

The key was to keep the main beam or spot over the coyotes and follow them with the spill. If we ever hit one directly with the spot, they’d check up more than not.

Then they came out with a green laser that would shine a quarter mile or so. At first deer, coyotes and pigs didn’t really pay it any attention but it wasn’t long till we got the same reaction you got. I’m thinking because it really was a spot only with really no spill and was just too bright.

I’ve got a Wicked light that has red and green heads so I guess I need to try the green and see what happens.

Nothing will beat thermal and night vision is good too but I’ve seen a little reaction to the IR illuminator too. Makes me wonder if that would be something they would associate with danger eventually.

We generally use red lights on predators. Green lights on hogs. Depending on how much they've been shot at hogs can be pretty sensitive to the light. I usually shine it well over their heads and spend a couple minutes VERY slowly lowering it. Ive been in places where they dont get shot at much and lit them right up with green or red and got zero reaction .

Shining it over them and slowly lowering it sounds like a good notion. I know that some of the better quality lights also have options for dimmer dial switches on the rear. My experience with the IR lights and the Sightmark Wraith is fairly limited so far, but none of them showed signs of seeing anything with the stock IR illuminator, including the two that I had green-lit on the previous night.


Low-res snapshots of laptop screen with my iphone:


(I lit this guy up for probably 2 minutes while he was head-on at 110-120yds)



(Other boar at 80yds as he was walking across my lane)


Better-res direct screen capture of a pig from a couple weeks back (70-80yds):




I'm also planning on using a larger IR illuminator soon and will be curious to see if any pigs spot the more powerful IR beam.

Never done it myself but my pard says the lowering it onto them works best.

^^^^ this^^^^
Lower it slowly catch them in the bottom of the spill seems to work best imo.