Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Light weight spotter Choice

I know there is a wealth of info out there on a lot of different spotters. Seven years ago, I sold the old Spacemaster and did a lot the research and looked through many different ones. I ended up choosing a B&L Elite 20-60x70 spotter. Mainly because I got a great deal and also because it did what I needed it for. A good in between spotter

But now both knees are shot, so my sheep and goat hunting expeditions will be curtailed....a lot!!

So I went and sold the spotter. Dumb move, as I now have a need for one for hunting black bears and BT deer here on the coast.

I have narrowed down my choice for a light weight spotter to one of these three. I want a light weight one as I do a lot of backpacking here on the Island. I found my Elite at 45 oz plus tripod ok for sheep and goat hunting, but I want a nice light one for beating through the brush on day hikes.

I will need some help as I am a long way away (5+ hour drive one way) from looking at any of these right now, but will be able to look at each in about a month.

Most expensive
Nikon 50ED

Mid Price
Bushnell Elite 15-45x60

Not the cheapest, but a great price form Doug (even with the shipping and other crap that Canada adds to stuff from the US)
Minox 50.

I know about the good reviews of the Nikon, have not read much about the Bushnell, and have read very little on the Minox.

Did I miss any???

It will be used mainly in the wet, foggy, windy Pacific Northwest and some moose and bear guiding in the fall. I am not worried about low light as I have yet been able to "SEE" a big animal at dusk that was far enough away that I needed my spotter and then had time to stalk and shoot the animal. If I need the spotter over my Leupold binos, then it was too far away to hunt that day.

Thanks

Cheers

SS

If you haven't seen it already, scroll down, there is a good thread on the Minox MD50.

In the 50mm class, I doubt you can beat the Nikon ED.
The other thing is that if you need a spotter at all, you need all the image clarity you can get. Alot of magnification puts huge demands on the lenses to produce that. While a large objective will go a long way to help deal with that problem, when you put lots of demands on a small 50mm objective, you really need first class optics.
I've seen some really crappy, cheap spotters. No where in optics is spending money more important for real performance. E