Light or no light, red or white

[Molon Labe]

No light. If you let your eyes adjust you can see just fine.
Deer vision is best at dusk and dawn. They can see the light going through the woods.
IF its a mature buck...he will take notice. They will pattern you.
Young bucks or herd mentality does...they wont get too spooked by the light.

The little twigs you break are nothing more than another deer moving in the woods to them.

Just make sure you dont make any metallic or fabric ripping on briar sounds...that is unnatural and they will take notice of those sounds. Also...know your routes into stands...if you have some tough spots take your time

 

[Rich M]

Have someone use a low powered LED white light that is focuses on the ground and not swinging around - watch em walk 300 or 400 yards up a powerline towards you. You'll have hard time following them.

Anyway, lights make no real diff. I use white.

 

[Tbone58]

I don’t use a light very much but when I do it’s red. I like the fact it’s easier for my eyes to adjust to the dark and I’m not lighting up the area I want to hunt. I have the black diamond storm. The light brightness can be adjusted. The red setting is bright and can be dimmed also

 

[willtim]

If needed, red.

 

[Reburn]

The deer dont care. But your eyes do. This is pretty definative and practiced by the military with pilots on not using white light when they are trying to preserve their night vision.

Excerpt from this article

Dark Adaptation of the Human Eye and the Value of Red Flashlights (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

The big player in night vision is rhodopsin, and that takes from 20 to 40 minutes for humans to start benefiting from it. A key trait of this feature is that rhodopsin is photoreactive. It only takes a few seconds of bright light to cause the rhodopsin to decay into two parts with a photosensitive reaction, and the rods stop working. Then the cycle starts again.

It is an interesting trait that deep red lights do not trigger the neutralization of the rhodopsin, so astronomers and safety officials use red lights for night lighting to allow night vision to continue. Since, unless the light is monochromatic like a laser, even red light has elements from other colors, even a bright red light can reduce the rhodopsin so a dim red light is best for maximizing after-dark eye behavior.

 

[PaHunter86]

I use a green light when needed. I have walked right past deer at 10yrds and they did nothing until they caught my scent. I've even stood still and let deer walk past me and never had an issue.

 

[BuckWild41]

I use a red light as much as I can, after the rattlers quit crawling anyway. Need to find one a little brighter, most of them are very weak.

So, IYO, which is better for rattlers?

 

[BuckWild41]

Yeah, friend of mine killed one this past Sunday. It was 5 feet long with 12 rattlers and a button. Biggest I've seen in a long time.

And what states was this in??

 

[LongWayAround]

I don't think it matters. I always hike with a white light or no light. When you have the white on, you see their eyes reflect and I rarely here deer take off that don't wind me. I've tried hiking in with red/green lights but they seem to affect my depth perception, making me clumsy. This, I believe, is probably due to me having some degree of red-green color blindness.

 

[N2TRKYS]

I prefer a green light over a red light. The green shines better on my bright eyes than the red does. I’ve used white, as well, with no adverse effects on deer.

If hunting really close to a bedding area, I’ll wait until I can barely see the ground to walk in. A deer’s eyesight is worse at dawn/dusk than any other time in my experience.

 

[KoolBreeze]

So, IYO, which is better for rattlers?

Ha! The brightest you can find.

 

[KoolBreeze]

And what states was this in??

Northeast Mississippi

 

[jobob730]

I have bees, and if I go out at night and shine a white light at them they freak out, but if I use red light, I can open the hives and shine the light all over them and they aren't bothered at all. I know bees aren't deer, but I think all react the same. I saw a video study on deer a while back that, I think, proved deer see light no matter what color, but it's the intensity of blue, just like for us humans, that cause more eye strain and appear as daylight, which alerts them. Use a good red light that throws a good distance, because they tend to be very weak, especially in headlamps. Then you can see well enough, and the deer won't be too bothered. The deer are going to see you moving through the woods, with no light, but they will definitely hear you before anything else, so might as well keep yourself from falling on your face.

 

[Mike Islander]

Being a flashaholic, my experience is that folks run red lights much brighter than white lights when trying to hike with low light. Red lights run at higher settings are bad for night vision. White lights run very low aren't too bad on night vision.

I don't think it really matters much (dim lights) if you are downwind before dawn unless hunting heavily pressured animals. While deer don't see the color red, they still see red lights. The color (hue) is missing but the saturation and brightness are still there.

 

[grfox92]

I hunted for 20 years in the whitetail woods and only used a light the last 3 or 4 years and it was just to find my bright eyes or if I needed tp cross a stream. Even then I would just click the light on to find a path and then back off.

If you don't use a light at all and let your eyes adjust you should be able to see more then enough to walk around the hardwoods and get to your stand. .

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

 

[Shraggs]

In my deer lease I really don’t need one as access is good in most spots. Some wooded swamps I do. However when walking field edges in the dark I periodically scan with binos and if I see deer I actually turn my light on. Handheld only so I can focus on the deer without the bouncing on and off target. I prefer it to be like a slow car going by them. Few nights ago went right past 6 deer with closest inside of 20 feet. Wind was in my favor obviously. In my experience scent then noise then the human silhouette bust game not lights.

tried the colors, I just like white. Lower power at the stand.

 

[Crowmangler]

I also use the BD Storm which has white, red, green & blue and all are dimmable.
I prefer green.. my eyes just seem to see better than with the red.
I like being able to hit the button & switch to white for dressing & skinning.
Even if I can see or am on a familiar trail I always have the light on just as another safety feature to let everyone else know that I'm not an elk or deer.