I've had a night vision monocular for a couple of years now, and for some reason, I never took it with me while hunting. My wife bought it for me, although she uses it all the time watching the stars at night. Even though I can’t hunt (shoot) with it, it turned out to be quite entertaining. This past weekend (about an hour before daylight) I watched a nice buck and a couple of coyotes walk within 50 yards of me (up wind). They had no idea that they were that close to me and I would have never known they were there without the aid of night vision. This makes me wonder how many times that game was all around me at night, prior to one of those mornings that turned out to be a dud.

Anybody else do any night vision hunting?

In Texas, it's not illegal to hunt for non-game animals at night.

My next project is to buy a night vision scope for hunting wild hogs (I’ve got a birthday coming up and I’ve been hinting to my wife. ). This could be interesting.

Cary

I own several night vision telescopic sights and one viewing scope.Here in the socialist state of oregon(cali north)it is illegal to hunt after dark.Does'nt mean it does'nt happen.We have many nocturnal predators and pests that are hard to locate during the daylight so the NV units come in handy!Coyotes, feral cats, coons,possoms,all have been"visited" at different times.

Cary, its legal to hunt most game at night in Australia, and spotlighting is a very common practice. I can't afford to buy a Night Vision Scope, so I use a spotlight. When I spotlight rabbits I will usually see heaps of the little buggers, whereas during the day they are few and far between. It is the same with foxes.

Most, if not all, professional roo shooters spotlight roos. During the heat of the day roos lay up in shady patches, usually under trees, and will not move about unless they feel threatened...but at night, they feed.

In some States out here it is illegal to hunt deer at night, but where I live they are classified as feral vermin and as such there is no season or restrictions on hunting them. I have never seen a fallow deer during the day, but at night you see many out feeding.

Not sure how your hogs are at night, but if they are like ours, then I would imagine that they would do most of their feeding after dusk and just before dawn. A Night Vision Scope should come in real handy, or maybe a normal scope and a mate with a powerful spotlight.

Cheers, Vince

Night vision scope and all light illegal in my country.
Kauko.

Cary: your reference to your wife's useage for astronomy or star gazing is interesting. We have access to some Gen III NV and have been observing some incredible and unexplanable night movement of lights in regular patterns, although, we can't determine the altitude. But, the incredible difference in the night sky's number of stars in and of itself is amazing.

We can't hunt at night in Arizona for any game or varmint. Still, we can use the NV to observe night movements and to "see" beyond the range of high power spotlights. Using infrared along with NV gives a better idea of warm blooded populations in remote areas, although, in most cases definition of what is being illuminated by NV or IF is challenging beyond a few hundred yards.

Handloader,

My wife and I were out in the yard one night about 6 months ago and counted (with a night vision scope) somewhere between 20 and 30 objects moving across the sky (during a 2 hour span of time) that appeared to be at the edge of the atmosphere. They looked like moving stars. I was wondering if they were communications satellites; however, they weren't there the next dozen or so times were tried to observe them. I just don't know. My wife believes that they were UFOs. I keep telling her that they are satellites, but truthfully, if they were communications satellites, they would be there every night, and they should be stationary, over a fixed point. Another thing is that they were traveling across the sky from every direction. It would normally take about a minute for each to cross the sky. I'm assuming that this is what you are observing. I do know that we have lots of spy satellites (along with every other country) and tons of space junk from former missions into space, so it would be hard to distinguish this stuff from an actual UFO. I do know one thing, it's really interesting to study the movement of objects in the night sky. The good thing is that you can see stuff every night, especially with night vision. It's an interesting hobby.

Cary

Cary,

According to NASA there is a lot of space junk up there, you may be seeing the space junk. The junk evenually looses its altitude/speed and plunges back to earth but is burned up in the atmosphere. Some of the shooting stars we see is in fact the space junk burning up in the atmosphere.

You'll get a lot of stuff moving South - North, as this is the track taken my most ground mapping & observation satellites.
They're easy to see with the naked eye just after dark, when they're reflecting sunlight.

Over here, we too use NV or lamping for pest control at night - mostly bunnies & foxes.
"Ratting" over bait with a NV equipped air rifle is fast & furious fun.

Cary: I have no explanation for the type of movement we have seen in the night sky. It isn't the typical travel of a satellite from horizon to horizon, rather, irregular movements of points of light, sometimes tracing circles, sometimes tracing squares. Gen III equipment can see this, however, Gen II or earlier cannot.

I put it in the same catagory as the Marfa lights. Simply, unexplanable, non threatening and intriguing.