Badlands Mule Deer Glassing Set-up

[esorekim05]

I’m from ND. This year, I helped my cousin hunt the badlands for mule deer for the first time (no success but saw lots of deer and had some opportunities on mature deer we just couldn’t finish deal).

I glasses with Zeiss SFLs 10x50s off a tripod. They worked great for scanning and finding deer, but I don’t have a spotter to better evaluate deer 0.5-1 mile away to see if they were mature bucks and worth chasing after or not.

So for the future (plan to hunt similar butte country in ND/SD/MT, maybe elk in MT someday if I’m lucky) I was planning to buy a spotter. I don’t have swaro/kowa money right now. Mainly day hunting but covering ground, so I do want to be somewhat weight conscious. I was looking at Vortex Razor 13-39x56 (straight to move back and forth from binos quickly on tripod). Will this be enough glass for these distances and questions? Not glassing for miles and not trying to see if the deer is 160 or 180” just if it looks like a 4.5yo vs 2.5yo etc.

I’m not interested in higher power binos.

Thoughts?


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[highside74]

You posted this in the wrong section. You will get more info posting this in the general discussion section.

 

[nm.otter]

For under a mile, a decent pair of 15-18x binos on a tripod should cover it.

 

[Eastonsgrandpa]

The mini vortex spotter is phenomenal for the price and I’m not a vortex guy. It is a much cleaner image than their big spotter. Another place to look is Athlon. A buddy has their top spotter (forgot the name) and it’s pretty dang good. No, they are not alpha, but you know that. Dim light will be the biggest drawback but it will absolutely work.