I had one more but my last post is already too long.
When people talk about glassing at first and last light I never really took that to heart. Last year I found out that it literally can be until last light! I was deer hunting with my son, we were passing up several bucks each day trying to find an older deer, on about day 3 we spotted what I thought was a buck right at dark coming out of the sagebrush into a more open area. I couldn't really see antlers at the time just a big body and familiar cadence to his walk, day 4 same thing, could barely make out a large deer right at dark. Day 5 we moved closer and actually went and laid down in the opening where he was coming down, he never showed because he most likely saw us. Day 6 we finally put eyes on the deer, we moved across to the other side of the mountain and started watching a couple of hours before dark, we snuck where we thought we would have a shot right at dark and by the time we got there the deer had crossed and were already out in the open about 200 yards away, my son got nervous and missed the deer, they didn't really know what happened and trotted off and it was already getting too dark to shoot.
Day 7 we gave it one last go, we sat on the edge of the clearing watching the sagebrush hillside. After a couple of hours sitting without seeing anything, my son was huddled up inside of my coat since it was super windy and in the low 40's. It was getting pretty dark so I asked him if he wanted to call it and head out, he said sure, as I stood up I saw movement out of the corner of my and instantly dropped back to my knees, I quietly spun the rifle around and got it set up on the tripod for the shot, my son found the bucks in the scope and waited for them to come into the clearing. Once the larger buck was in the clear my son took the shot right at the very last light, it was a 50 yard shot with my 280AI. The moral of the story is that if I hadn't been glassing right up until I couldn't glass any longer, we would have never found the buck. If we wouldn't have moved to a better vantage we would have never seen the buck, and if we wouldn't have been persistent he wouldn't have killed him.
Sitting until it is too dark to glass will eventually pay off, I don't know how many times I have run out of light sitting behind a set of binos or my spotter.
When people talk about glassing at first and last light I never really took that to heart. Last year I found out that it literally can be until last light! I was deer hunting with my son, we were passing up several bucks each day trying to find an older deer, on about day 3 we spotted what I thought was a buck right at dark coming out of the sagebrush into a more open area. I couldn't really see antlers at the time just a big body and familiar cadence to his walk, day 4 same thing, could barely make out a large deer right at dark. Day 5 we moved closer and actually went and laid down in the opening where he was coming down, he never showed because he most likely saw us. Day 6 we finally put eyes on the deer, we moved across to the other side of the mountain and started watching a couple of hours before dark, we snuck where we thought we would have a shot right at dark and by the time we got there the deer had crossed and were already out in the open about 200 yards away, my son got nervous and missed the deer, they didn't really know what happened and trotted off and it was already getting too dark to shoot.
Day 7 we gave it one last go, we sat on the edge of the clearing watching the sagebrush hillside. After a couple of hours sitting without seeing anything, my son was huddled up inside of my coat since it was super windy and in the low 40's. It was getting pretty dark so I asked him if he wanted to call it and head out, he said sure, as I stood up I saw movement out of the corner of my and instantly dropped back to my knees, I quietly spun the rifle around and got it set up on the tripod for the shot, my son found the bucks in the scope and waited for them to come into the clearing. Once the larger buck was in the clear my son took the shot right at the very last light, it was a 50 yard shot with my 280AI. The moral of the story is that if I hadn't been glassing right up until I couldn't glass any longer, we would have never found the buck. If we wouldn't have moved to a better vantage we would have never seen the buck, and if we wouldn't have been persistent he wouldn't have killed him.
Sitting until it is too dark to glass will eventually pay off, I don't know how many times I have run out of light sitting behind a set of binos or my spotter.
