Binoculars vs. Spotting Scope for Mountain Hunting?

[AZ Ron]

I'll just mirror what others have said regarding cheap spotting scopes. They aren't worth carrying around, imo. I'd prioritize a good set of binos and a tripod to glass off of. After those, then a spotter (or a pair of 15's if glassing 800-1000 yds+).

Down here in AZ, for deer, elk, and javelina, I carry 8's around my neck, and 15's with a tripod for glassing. When helping on sheep hunts, spotters are necessary for evaluating sheep, but most times 15 power binos are a lot easier to glass with and I can usually tell if the animal is worth pursuing with 15's. The only problem with the 15's is I find myself glassing a long ways away...

Ron

 

[Bowhuntrben]

PonoHunt mentioned getting a good harness for your binoculars. Does anybody have any recommendations on good harnesses? Pouch vs. no pouch?

 

[jryoung]

I like the crooked horn harness....and I would highly recommend a pouch.

 

[CabinFever]

I'd highly recommend a pouch. BinoBro from OPW.

http://www.oregonpackworks.com/Articles.asp?ID=255

 

[PonoHunt]

PonoHunt mentioned getting a good harness for your binoculars. Does anybody have any recommendations on good harnesses? Pouch vs. no pouch?

My glasses looked liked the picture above after this years 3rd season hunt here in colorado, so I went with FHF Gear on recommendation. I love it so far.

http://www.fhfgear.com/Hunt.php

 

[sagebrush]

I do have a question about what you guys mean by glassing. Let's say your spring bear hunting and it's maybe 4PM. You've just hiked up to the crest of a large finger ridge and you've got 2-3 miles of opposing slope in front of you. Are you going to spend the rest of the day (until sunset) glassing this one 2-3 mile stretch repeatedly (hoping that a bear will eventually emerge), or will you give that stretch maybe one or two thorough looks and then move on to a different area to glass?

I guess what I'm asking is do you guys sit in one area and wait for the animals to come into your field of view, or do you glass an area over and, if its empty, move to a new area?

Every area has "glassing spots" and most hunters familiar with the area will know them. They are the high spots that give an unobstructed view of large areas of productive habitat. Sometimes it's the clear spot on the top of a wooded knoll or a rock outcropping on the side of a canyon. You will see far more game sitting from one of these spots than you ever will hiking and glancing through your optics every once in a while.

This year while hunting mule deer in NV, I found a buck I wanted to hunt late in the afternoon. No way would I be able to put on a successful stalk. I backed out and returned to the "glassing spot" in the dark the following morning. I started glassing while it was too dark to see everything in the bowl below me. After 30 minutes or so, I was able to pick up a deer about a mile out feeding on mountain mahogany. I broke out my spotter and confirmed it was the buck I was after. He had been feeding most of the night and was moving away. I watched that buck for an hour and forty five minutes hoping he would bed down. Had I not seen the deer, I would have stayed that long or longer just looking for that one buck. If I would have hiked up there and glassed for 15 or 20 minutes and moved on, I would have never seen that buck. And he probably would have seen me.

Several years ago, I was on a summer scouting trip. I was on a "glassing spot" overlooking a basin I thought should be full of deer. When it got light enough to see, I was surprised there were no deer to be found. I glassed that basin for hours. I started naming the bushes and trees, I looked at them so many times. About 10AM, a nice buck stood in his bed, stretched and laid back down. It took about 10 seconds. That was the only deer I saw in the first 4 1/2 hours of daylight. After another hour, deer started popping up out of their beds, some moving to water and others just re-positioning to get into the shade that had moved.

I don't know how else to say it. You will flat out see more game on your butt than you will on your feet. I can't tell you how many times I hear "We hiked 15 miles today and never saw a thing". In that same area, I hiked 1 mile, glassed all day and saw 60 head of deer.

 

[PonoHunt]

I don't know how else to say it. You will flat out see more game on your butt than you will on your feet. I can't tell you how many times I hear "We hiked 15 miles today and never saw a thing". In that same area, I hiked 1 mile, glassed all day and saw 60 head of deer.

I completely agree with this statement and it has taken me many years to sit down for hours and get through a long glassing period. I have bad ADHD, and I feel like I have always got to be moving. I use to glass an area 20 mins, say there is nothing there and move on. I am still impatient and still have to try to talk myself out of getting up and moving on. The biggest buck I killed in my life was last year during Colorado 3rd season, during the Saturday of the blizzared on the 2nd weekend. I had given up for the day and told my hunting buddy it was time to get up, get warm and move down the ridge and hunt along the way. He told me "just 10 more minutes". I got up and walked over to another area to glass real quick before we left, by the time I got back in that 10 mins, he found the shooter and we were off. I am not saying we wouldn't of found him in the sage brush as we were hunting back to camp, as he would of been along the way, but it was that extra 10 mins that made it happen. If I know I am going to be glassing for a long time, I will bring my Ipod with a download book on CD on it, and I will make myself sit there and listen for several hours. This helped me calm my mind and stop thinking about "I need to move on to the next spot". I cannot tell you how many times it was in the 2nd to 3rd hour of glassing that I saw animals after glassing the entire morning the same basin. Try the book on CD thing (then rip it to your Itunes account), you will be amazed at how occupied it will keep your mind while you are in a long morning glassing session. All it will take is that first bick buck/elk you find after the 2nd or 3rd hour of glassing the same basin to prove to yourself that sitting and glassing is more effective.

 

[MHMT]

What job were you working last summer MHMT? That sounds like a dream job!

Working with a graduate student, studying mountain ungulates. It was a dream job, the only hard part was being in the mountains in archery season, not carrying a bow.

 

[Jon Boy]

Working with a graduate student, studying mountain ungulates. It was a dream job, the only hard part was being in the mountains in archery season, not carrying a bow.

I literally couldnt do that and would probably be fired soon after archery season started.

 

[Bambistew]

Guess I'm a little different... I'd rather have a cheap spotting scope than none. I hunted a lot of years with cheap gear and got by ok. I spend as much time glassing with a spotter as I do with binos. I look for easy animals with the binos first then switch to the spotter and pick appart the hillsides. Cheap glass sucks once you have the good stuff, but it's a hell of a lot better than none.

Good luck on your hunt, you'll need it... along with high quality glass.

 

[webejmn]

Buddy has a pouch, I put harness inside vest and zip them up inside. Both work good.

 

[PonoHunt]

Guess I'm a little different... I'd rather have a cheap spotting scope than none. I hunted a lot of years with cheap gear and got by ok. I spend as much time glassing with a spotter as I do with binos. I look for easy animals with the binos first then switch to the spotter and pick appart the hillsides. Cheap glass sucks once you have the good stuff, but it's a hell of a lot better than none.

Good luck on your hunt, you'll need it... along with high quality glass.

You grinded out a Montana general season sheep hunt or two back in the day didn't you Bambi?

 

[kad11]

I just wanted to thank everyone for their advice and wisdom; I have definitely learned a lot on this website and will approach this coming spring season much differently.

This is off-topic from the original post, but has anyone ever read "Montana: Land of Giant Rams" by Duncan Gilchrist (specifically Volume III)? If you have, would you say it is worth the $20? What kind of advice (especially on the unlimited districts) does the author and other contributors provide?

Thanks

 

[Jon Boy]

Guess I'm a little different... I'd rather have a cheap spotting scope than none. I hunted a lot of years with cheap gear and got by ok. I spend as much time glassing with a spotter as I do with binos. I look for easy animals with the binos first then switch to the spotter and pick appart the hillsides. Cheap glass sucks once you have the good stuff, but it's a hell of a lot better than none.

Good luck on your hunt, you'll need it... along with high quality glass.

Good point. I hunted with a used wind river sequoi for a few years, really not incredibly terrible under 20x. And for binos I had barskas, they were nick name barovskis after I kept out spotting some yuppy that was brought into camp with swarovskis

I will say glassing technique is just as important as expensive glass. If you think you can buy 10k worth of optics and stare at a hillside and animals just pop out of no where, ull be sorely mistaken. Gotta no where to look and how to look. I follow david longs 4 phase glassing technique.