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Estimating shooting distance at night

Doug

New member
Joined
Jul 10, 2001
Messages
625
Location
Northern Colorado
How do you die hard night hunters go about estimating shooting distance while hunting at night? Everything looks much much closer when you are taking a shot at a lighted target. It's when you walk out to retrieve your animal that you realize that your 100 yard shot was really closer to 200 yards. So how do you estimate shooting distance while night hunting?
 
For me, I find it to be just the opposit. Things look much farther away than what they really are. First shot, I always aim dead on or just above the eyes and adjust from there.
 
Maybe I need to get my depth perception checked.
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Everything looks closer to me when I am using a red light. What about recovering an animal after the shot? Once the eyes aren't lit up anymore its not so easy.
Doug
 
After 40 years of hunting at night, I'm still in the dark lol.
I've said it in the past and I'll say it again. (NIGHT HUNTING IS MUCH HARDER THEN DAY HUNTING.) So much so I could wright a book about it, Hummmm lol.
Doug, you are right about animals looking closer at night then they really are. I don't know how mamy times I walked out another 50 to 75 yards and there it was.
Shooting at night is a totally different story then shooting in the day. It's best done with a hunting partner. One shoots and one holds the light and keeps an eye on where the animal is.
I zero in 1" high at a 100 yards and put the crosshairs right on what ever I'm shooting at. I kill about 90% of what I shoot at. Not because I'm a good shot, but because of the way I do it.
I have also found you are wasting alot of your time if you shoot at a predator 300 yards or more, you may be out there looking for it for hours and probably won't even find it lol.
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After the kill, the guy with the light keeps his eye on the spot where the animal was. then we either use 2 way radios to communicate with each other( me and my partner) or we have taken a small tripod and attached a laser pointer which can be aimed at the spot where the animal was shot . Then we can go find it.
 
Crapshoot, I know guys in our club ( The California Varmint Callers Asso )that used lazers and two way radios to find animals more then 20 years ago. Thats interesting you know about that. Did you figure it out yourself or did someone tell you about it?
As you know that Nevada desert all looks the same at night, the lazer really helps. A guy holding the light can lose an animal kinda easy, that lazer puts you in a stright line and right on the animal. Good Hunting.

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 08-30-2003 19:01: Message edited by: Danny Batastini ]</font>
 

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