Rossi Rifleman

Tried a lot of lighting options over the years for scouting hogs at night.

Then one night with clear skies, a full moon, and a good pair of binoculars,
it was amazing how much and how far you could see without any artificial light.

Animals out of the shadows of the tree line are easily identifiable out to about 250 yards.

It never snows here in the tropics of South Louisiana, but a snow covered pasture must be
a beautiful sight to behold in the moonlight.

The attached picture is a stock photo from online that I modified a bit
to give an idea what it looked like last night. Although I didn't see any deer.

This time of the month, the full moon, is my favorite time. I've killed a lot of hogs in these conditions and without using a light. You can also get incredibly close to hogs at night as long as you mind the wind.

The full moon is amazing. When I took a photography course a while back we got into a discussion on full moon and exposure. Our instructor said to everyone's surprise it's the same as daylight - f16 with the shutter speed equal to the ASA rating of the film. If you still play with film try it it works on cloudless full moon nights. Particularly on ones like this last one with the moon at perigee.

make smoke,

Ranch Dog wrote:This time of the month, the full moon, is my favorite time. I've killed a lot of hogs in these conditions and without using a light. You can also get incredibly close to hogs at night as long as you mind the wind.

Once I was able to get within 25 yards during a night stalk.
It was a young hog, busily digging with it's head buried up to it's ears.

It was quite the challenge to use the scope, even on it's lowest power setting.

In hindsight, maybe open sights with Nitesiters might be a better choice.

Mrlucky353 wrote:

Ranch Dog wrote:This time of the month, the full moon, is my favorite time. I've killed a lot of hogs in these conditions and without using a light. You can also get incredibly close to hogs at night as long as you mind the wind.

Once I was able to get within 25 yards during a night stalk.
It was a young hog, busily digging with it's head buried up to it's ears.

It was quite the challenge to use the scope, even on it's lowest power setting.

In hindsight, maybe open sights with Nitesiters might be a better choice.

I think it is more the background. Our grass is very light and they stand out like a sore thumb against it. My Mini-30 Scout works real good for this work as I can get it on them with the scope, tighten my grip on the forearm and the light comes on, boom. Like you noted, they all are head down in the grass, also not paying a lot of attention as they are all making noise. I found I can get right in the middle of them.

If my Mini-30 was subsonic supressed, I have no doubt that I could kill several in in a sounder within a few seconds. The light is only on for a second. I also will use that light to locate them and then move in on them. As long as you just turn it on and back off, they don't seem to pay attention to it or just don't see it because they are head down.