7 Things You Should Know About Night Vision Hunting

Hog seen at night using Digital Crosshairs 1000 night vision clip-on
Digital Crosshairs 1000 night vision clip-on
  1. When night vision hunting with friends, the only person that will be able to see what you are shooting at or anything for that matter is the person looking through the scope.  It is not social like the videos make it seem with most products.  Digital Crosshairs 1000 and the NiteSite products have a display that everyone in the hunting party can look at while hunting.
  2. Unlike filmed night hunting videos or hunting in the daylight, the only perspective a night hunter has is the limited field of view through the scope. The higher the magnification, the narrower your field of view.  The closer the object, the narrower your field of view.  Try this, take a 8″ x 11″ picture of a field and draw a one half inch circle some place 100 yards away.  That is probably more than you would see at night.
  3. If you don’t have a night vision monocular, you will have to raise your gun to look through the scope every time you want scan the area. A bipod is very helpful.
  4. Judging distances to your target is more challenging with night vision. In an open field, is it a small hog at 80 yards or a larger hog at 120 yards?  Unless your scope has a range finder, use land marks to help judge your distances.
  5. Keep your batteries warm. If you are hunting in freezing weather keep those extra batteries in your pockets.  Cold weather will suck the juice right out of them.
  6. When walk and stalk hunting, you will need some type of dim light at least at your feet, but not a bright light that can alert animals. Remember, it will be dark and you will also need a very bright light to find the blood trail and the animal if it runs into the brush.
  7. Expect temporary night blindness after looking in the eye piece of a night vision or thermal scope. Everyone’s pupils open wide when it’s dark.  When you look into a thermal or night vision scope, your pupils get smaller from the light.  This causes temporary night blindness when you remove your eye from the scope.  Products like Digital Crosshairs 1000 that have a LCD display do not cause night blindness.

Author: DigitalFOV

Founder and Chief Innovator at Digital FOV, LLC

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