Night vision monocular and trad archery at night

[ishoot4thrills]

I see one of the "Trad Police" is out. Even cursing carbon arrows!    :rolleyes:  And yes, Stumpkiller, you DO need a light even for instinctive shooting, when it's totally dark. Otherwise, how do you see your target? A candle puts off some light or you wouldn't be able to see it.

Hey, people use lights at night for bowfishing. Why not night vision for 'yotes and hogs, if it's legal.

[Stumpkiller]

More a concerned local citizen than a policeman.  

I didn't curse carbons.  I just suggested they are a concession to taking an easier path and the spirit of traditional archery is to take the more difficult routes.  The night vision goggles are out an even easier path.  Far, far down that "easy" path.  Your path is your own business - but it tells me something when you are defensive about it.      

When does it just become "archery" instead of "traditional archery"?  Or killing with a bow instead of bowhunting?

And I think nightvision goggles for any sporting purpose is flat unsportsmanlike.  If you want to kill a coyote or guard a hen-house from raccoons, great.  I raise chickens and turkeys and I have killed dozens of coyote and raccoons - without mercy or sporting chance.  NVG are even better for knocking out an opponent on the battlefield.  But don't confuse it with hunting.  THAT is just my humble opinion.  No arrests will be made.

[chanumpa]

I too dont support these devices and or electronic devices on bows.I admit that it surely sounds exciting for especially hogs,but takes alott of the sport out of hunting.Isnt fair chase,roughing it style hunts what traditional archery hunting is about?Seems like letting all this technology legal to hunt with will just make it easy to poachers,screwing the whole deal up.And wow,3k.Im out.Ill stick with the Barta way.

[Chester Thompson]

Originally posted by chanumpa:
I too dont support these devices and or electronic devices on bows.I admit that it surely sounds exciting for especially hogs,but takes alott of the sport out of hunting.Isnt fair chase,roughing it style hunts what traditional archery hunting is about?Seems like letting all this technology legal to hunt with will just make it easy to poachers,screwing the whole deal up.And wow,3k.Im out.Ill stick with the Barta way.

I agree with you on native game animals, but not destructive hogs.

I've seen the damage that they can do to fields over night or in a couple of days. Kill all pigs anyway that you can and anytime that you can is what I think.

[Chester Thompson]

Originally posted by JAG:
If you're gonna night hunt, why not wait for a full moon?        
No offense inttended to anyone!
Besides for that kinda money I could book a great hunt and buy some new wool!

Because that leaves most of the month, where there might not be enough light.

Beside there really is no need for wool clothing in Texas, no matter what anybody tells you.    

[firsted]

I've been talking to some of my out-of-state friends about these.  I wouldn't hunt with one but I'd sure like to see where in the heck the animals are going before sun up.  I'd definitely use one to scout before season; I just think it'd be way cool to follow what's going on in real time.  But again, I wouldn't mount one & hunt in the dark.  Just an opinion.

[hunt it]

This hog, and many more were shot at night in texas with no light other than stars or moonlight. I've tried a bunch of lights etc and the moon and stars work better than everything else for me. If you drink enough Full Throttle your eyes open wider and you can stay up hog hunting all night!

[highpoint forge]

Very true Hunt It! Nice beast. I prefer moonlights as well and usually sit on my tripod well after dark to nail hogs coming into my feeders. Were I a gun guy, night vision is the way to go on pigs....snipe em from far away so the herd won't run too far.

[chanumpa]

Wow,pretty cool.Is it a Canadian ferul hog?

[longarrow]

I use NVG in the Military for over 20 years, had the chance to test many different ones! After I retired, I found that I missed that being able to have them "available". So I purchased a "Cheap" pair fo Night Owl II Gen.(hand held) You can get a pair, on sale for $300.00 or less. I use mine for scouting, when I'm movin to and from the stand in darkness and for safety and securty, also great for hog hunting! I've never tryed to shoot with them, but I'm sure a smart guy could figure it! That leaves me out!!

[Jeff Strubberg]

Dave shot that one by the light of the brush fire sweeping across the ranch.    

[oxnam]

highpoint forge - Not getting much trad support on this one.  

I guarantee making the shot on a full moon night is going to be a heck of a lot easier than trying to shoot one on a dark night looking through NV.  So if you want to go with the mind set that trad should make it harder, then shooting the NV meets that criteria and should be applauded, right?  Sure it's a bit techy but the challenge is more difficult than making the shot at one in broad daylight so you've got my vote.  

Nice job trying to bring trad into your circle of associates and hunting buddies.  

[vtmtnman]

Man that would be sweet to try.Even one of the binos on a head harness.I'd give it a try.Night vision is sweet,been wanting some of it for years.

Unlike the rest of the trad police here, I think it would be well suited for hunting at night with a trad bow(At any game that is legal to hunt during night time obviously).

[ishoot4thrills]

Originally posted by Stumpkiller:
More a concerned local citizen than a policeman.  

I didn't curse carbons.  I just suggested they are a concession to taking an easier path and the spirit of traditional archery is to take the more difficult routes.  The night vision goggles are out an even easier path.  Far, far down that "easy" path.  Your path is your own business - but it tells me something when you are defensive about it.          

When does it just become "archery" instead of "traditional archery"?  Or killing with a bow instead of bowhunting?

And I think nightvision goggles for any sporting purpose is flat unsportsmanlike.  If you want to kill a coyote or guard a hen-house from raccoons, great.  I raise chickens and turkeys and I have killed dozens of coyote and raccoons - without mercy or sporting chance.  NVG are even better for knocking out an opponent on the battlefield.  But don't confuse it with hunting.  THAT is just my humble opinion.  No arrests will be made.

I'm just defending most of us against a few who seem to be "more trad than thou". I'll bet that you even find your way in unfamiliar territory in the dark morning hours to your stand via candle light too, right? I guess I'm not trad because I use an LED flashlight in the dark myself. High tech alkaline batteries and all. Why, I even use modern day technology for lighting up the water when I bowfish as well. What's the difference, NV and artificial lights?

LOTS of folks choose carbon arrows here as well too. I like'em 'cause they're tuff as nails and stay straight. Isn't carbon a natural material?

   

[Stumpkiller]

Originally posted by ishoot4thrills:
I'm just defending most of us against a few who seem to be "more trad than thou". I'll bet that you even find your way in unfamiliar territory in the dark morning hours to your stand via candle light too, right?            

No, I stumble in the dark 'cause I don't want to spook deer with a light.  But I do have a Fenix LED in my daypack and a Princeton Tec as a backup so you got me there.  Would I shine either on an animal to shoot at it while hunting?  Nope.  Would I use the Fenix when double tapping a raccoon with my .22LR Ciener conversion on my Colt 1911?  Yep.  But that's not hunting.  That's killing.

I drive a car, too, but not while I'm hunting.  And I do not use an ATV to get off the road.  I use my feet and leave earlier.  ;-)

More trad than thou?  As I said: we all chose how trad to be.  I'm not defending my choices.  But I still can't get my brain around shooting game while wearing night vision goggles as being traditional bowhunting of any kind.  Heck, I know compound shooters who probably wouldn't, either.  

People been gigging walleyes and alligators by targeting the reflections off their eyes since burning pine knots were the lightsource from dug-out canoes - go get 'em tiger - provided it's legal in your area.        

Carbon is a natural material.  Heck, it's an element.  Hop out and dig a carbon arrow shaft out of the ground and we'll talk.  The polyamine resin matrix used to hold it and keep it from behaving like pencil graphite - that's modern.          I know, I know.  My fiberglass limbed recurves are no different, really.  We make our own distinctions.

[ishoot4thrills]

Stumpkiller,

Actually, I'll probably never, ever hunt anything with NV and I've never actually hunted game using trad bows with the aid of lights mounted on my bow, or my head for that matter, with the exception of finding my way around or blood trailing in the dark. But, I don't see much wrong with hunting 'yotes or hogs at night with lights or NV either, where legal. But, I can somewhat understand, and respect, your disagreement also, although, ultimately, I know my opinion doesn't matter.

What I really don't understand is why you chose to take a shot at the use of carbon arrows in trad bows, when the discussion at hand had nothing to do with what arrows one chooses to hunt with. That's what irked me. And, I'd say I'm not the only one whom it may have riled. It just seems to me that you're pointing the finger at many trad bowhunters in a "I'm 'tradder' than thou" kind of way. Why?

[Stumpkiller]

Just making the point, somewhat tongue in cheek, that we have blurred the line and it's easy to embrace easier.  

I respect your choices and you can come hunt my property any time and I'm sure we'd get along.  Sometimes I like to encourage folks to look inside (I was an instructor at a business college for a time) and if you thought that trollish I apologize . . . but obviously it hit some nerve.

I fancy myself "traditional" to the point that I like to use equipment from the 60's and early 70's.  So, what did a bowhunter from 1967 do?  He went to the sporting goods store and bought a dozen or two arrows, likely wood but aluminum was encroaching and, if he could have afforded it, may have selected those.  He pulled the most advanced bow technology and mass production could produce off the rack.  So why do I think I have to use old stuff to emulate him?  I have no idea.  Internal goals that I set for myself.  

Now, do I feel some nimrod who dug up a horse apple sapling and split out a stave with a hatchet and then scraped down an osage bow out of it with a cabinet scraper he made from an old sawblade and launched dogwood arrows with flint tips into a deer is more traditional than me?  Damn'd right I do!  I respect he is getting results by improving himself and not with heavy applications of dollars and technology.  But that's his choice.

So, in truth, I do not chose to use carbon but if you like that's your choice.  I feel I stick closer to whatever tradition truly is by using P.O. cedar.  I've worked a while and practice almost daily to get them to fly acceptably and I have no doubt you have honed your skills with the carbon as well.  Frankly, I just like cedar and that's why I use it.  I have seen carbon arrows in use hunting I do not consider adequate equipment - though never as shot from a recurve (I don't actually know any longbow shooters who use them, but I suppose there must be).

Sorry to have stained the thread and I hope something I typed assures you I regret implying my choices should be your choices.  

Shoot straight.

[ishoot4thrills]

Stumpkiller,

Understood, no problem, man.      

[highpoint forge]

Not to crap on my own thread but I killed my very first hog in Oct, in 99% full darkness sitting in my tripod, by moonlight and adjusted night vision. Spine shot no less. So there. Take that, me!

Still effective for gun types, but for trad I vote no. Cool yes, but I won't attempt a shot with it. I "might" watch them come in to the feeder though with it.
   :D