Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 664: Foundations - Why Optics Matter and How To Use Them Correctly

Transcript

Ep. 664: Foundations - Why Optics Matter and How To Use Them Correctly · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals better dear Hunting. Present it by First Light,
0:08
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:13
Speaker 1: First Light, Go farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
0:17
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:19
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:23
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. This week's
0:26
Speaker 2: show is all about taking a closer look at all
0:28
Speaker 2: critters while using the right optics for the situation. It's
0:42
Speaker 2: kind of I don't know, it's been in my experience
0:44
Speaker 2: anyway that Western hunters understand the importance of optics a
0:49
Speaker 2: hell of a lot more than the average white tail hunter.
0:51
Speaker 2: And this makes sense, like, at least to some extent,
0:54
Speaker 2: when you consider, you know, the big country that Western
0:56
Speaker 2: critters live in. Letting your eyes with the right optics
0:59
Speaker 2: do a lot of the walking saves you, while a
1:02
Speaker 2: lot of walking white tails and they're tighter confines, they
1:06
Speaker 2: just don't require the same long distance effort. Typically. The
1:10
Speaker 2: truth is glassing is a skill that will benefit all
1:13
Speaker 2: big game hunters and it's something worth understanding, which is
1:16
Speaker 2: what this episode is all about. I'm currently reading one
1:29
Speaker 2: of Neil deGrasse Tyson's books on Well You Guessed It Space?
1:34
Speaker 2: For those who don't know, Tyson is an astrophysicist who
1:37
Speaker 2: has a knack for explaining big, complicated concepts in a
1:41
Speaker 2: way that even a knuckle dragger like me can understand.
1:44
Speaker 2: In one of the chapters of this book, Tyson explains
1:47
Speaker 2: a concept that made me instantly think about hunting. In it,
1:51
Speaker 2: he breaks down how when you're interested in learning about space,
1:55
Speaker 2: you either need to take a really close look via
1:58
Speaker 2: a high powered saddle later a probe, or you need
2:01
Speaker 2: to back way way out and look at certain things
2:05
Speaker 2: in a zoomed out type of style. Is that confusing?
2:09
Speaker 2: Let me paraphrase a little more so I can contextualize
2:11
Speaker 2: it better. The two examples he uses are, what if
2:15
Speaker 2: you had a guy walking in front of you on
2:17
Speaker 2: a sidewalk, and for whatever reason, you needed to see
2:20
Speaker 2: the inscription on his class ring. Even at like twenty
2:24
Speaker 2: feet You'd see a guy walking and could maybe catch
2:28
Speaker 2: a glimpse of the ring on his finger, but you
2:30
Speaker 2: sure as hell couldn't read it unless you were crossbred
2:32
Speaker 2: with a red tailed hawk or maybe an eagle. You'd
2:35
Speaker 2: need to zoom in or get closer. The closer you get,
2:39
Speaker 2: the more details you can see. Eventually, you could even
2:42
Speaker 2: pull out a magnifying glass and study the ring to
2:45
Speaker 2: see the inscription in true detail. That level of magnification
2:49
Speaker 2: and distance would allow you to resolve all of that
2:51
Speaker 2: detail into something that makes sense. In contrast, he pointed
2:55
Speaker 2: out this wouldn't work with a Renaissance era painting. If
3:00
Speaker 2: you started at six inches from the painting with a
3:02
Speaker 2: magnifying glass, you'd be able to see individual brushstrokes and
3:06
Speaker 2: clumps of different colors of paint, but it wouldn't make
3:09
Speaker 2: much sense to you as a scene. You'd need to
3:13
Speaker 2: back up to a reasonable distance to see what the
3:15
Speaker 2: painting actually depicts. In space, if you want to understand
3:18
Speaker 2: these examples, you could pick any random exoplanet out there
3:22
Speaker 2: circling its respective star and zoom in with something like
3:25
Speaker 2: the James Webb telescope. Yet, if you wanted to see
3:28
Speaker 2: the shape of our galaxy the Milky Way, for example,
3:31
Speaker 2: you'd actually need to get quite a ways away from
3:34
Speaker 2: it to look back and see that it isn't just
3:36
Speaker 2: a blob of stars and space dust. Instead is actually
3:40
Speaker 2: a spiral armed galaxy rotating around sagittarius a a big
3:44
Speaker 2: old black hole that is holding the whole thing in place.
3:47
Speaker 2: Sometimes you need to get close. Sometimes you need to
3:50
Speaker 2: be far away to understand what you're looking at. You
3:52
Speaker 2: know where. This probably matters more to you personally than
3:55
Speaker 2: in astronomy. That's right, golf, Just kidding, Hunting now, I'm
4:01
Speaker 2: bending this idea a little to fit what I want
4:03
Speaker 2: to talk about, because really, if you're using a spotting
4:05
Speaker 2: scope or binoculars, you're getting a closer look. But there
4:08
Speaker 2: is a difference in glassing styles, and there is a
4:11
Speaker 2: difference in the benefit to watching the world with say,
4:14
Speaker 2: like I don't know, eight by forty binoculars versus eighty
4:17
Speaker 2: five millimeters spotting scope something with maybe like a sixty
4:20
Speaker 2: power zoom. So acknowledge that, and we will just forget
4:24
Speaker 2: that I didn't start this with a imperfect analogy. Glassing
4:28
Speaker 2: is important if you hunt out west for mule deer
4:32
Speaker 2: or something. It might be the most important part of
4:35
Speaker 2: the hunt outside of planning a really good route for
4:38
Speaker 2: a stalk, and even that only happens after you find
4:41
Speaker 2: a deer to stalk. So really it's kind of the lynchpin,
4:44
Speaker 2: and that holds the whole thing together. White tails rarely
4:48
Speaker 2: die solely because a hunter got eyes on them with binoculars,
4:52
Speaker 2: but the benefits are many, and I'm going to get
4:54
Speaker 2: into them, but first I want to talk about how
4:56
Speaker 2: most hunters glass sort of I don't know, half ass like,
5:00
Speaker 2: and I'm including myself in this assessment, so don't take
5:02
Speaker 2: it personally. Now. I did think I was pretty good
5:06
Speaker 2: on the binos until I started hunting with a buddy
5:08
Speaker 2: of mine who lives in Colorado. The first time we
5:11
Speaker 2: really got together in a place where we could glass.
5:13
Speaker 2: We met up in North Dakota to hunt white tails
5:15
Speaker 2: and meal deer in the badlands, and during one particularly
5:18
Speaker 2: windy midday, we decided to go see if we could
5:21
Speaker 2: scan the countryside to pick up a buck. I knew wrongly,
5:26
Speaker 2: I might add, that this was going to be a
5:28
Speaker 2: lost cause, or at least I thought it was mostly
5:30
Speaker 2: going to be a lost cause. The bucks out there
5:33
Speaker 2: get pressured pretty hard, and they aren't prone to bedding
5:35
Speaker 2: in the wide open where they're easy to see. They
5:38
Speaker 2: tuck into the wooded draws and the cedars, and they
5:41
Speaker 2: don't give themselves up too often. So when we started glassing,
5:45
Speaker 2: Tyler and I set up a spotting scope on a
5:47
Speaker 2: good tripod just below the lip of a cliff to
5:50
Speaker 2: keep us out of the wind. I sat next to
5:52
Speaker 2: him while he was on that spotting scope and I
5:55
Speaker 2: put my binos to my eyes and I did a
5:57
Speaker 2: quick perimeter sweep so announced that I didn't see anything
6:02
Speaker 2: and he probably wouldn't either. And anyway, it took him
6:06
Speaker 2: about twenty seven seconds to find two meal their doze
6:08
Speaker 2: that I had completely missed, and they were on their
6:10
Speaker 2: feet and not all that far away. So it was
6:12
Speaker 2: kind of embarrassing for me, and in a couple of
6:15
Speaker 2: hours we scoured the distant hills for deer. He kicked
6:18
Speaker 2: my ass all over the countryside. It was actually pretty embarrassing,
6:22
Speaker 2: and it reminded me of two things. I was not
6:25
Speaker 2: a patient and thorough glasser, and I had the wrong
6:28
Speaker 2: tool for that job. I was looking big picture with
6:31
Speaker 2: the binos while he was zooming in and digging deep
6:34
Speaker 2: with a spotter. Ever since then, I've tried to be
6:38
Speaker 2: more disciplined in my glassing and keep the right tools
6:40
Speaker 2: for the job handy. Here's the thing, I think every hunter,
6:45
Speaker 2: no matter what type of big game here she targets,
6:48
Speaker 2: should have a spotter with a decent tripod and a
6:51
Speaker 2: decent pair of binos, most whitetail hunters will probably disagree.
6:56
Speaker 2: That's fine, it's my podcast. I'm gonna make the case
6:59
Speaker 2: for it anyway. When it comes to a decent spotter
7:02
Speaker 2: with a decent tripod, the buy in is a little rough,
7:06
Speaker 2: but good optics are usually backed by great warranties and
7:09
Speaker 2: they last a long long time if you take care
7:12
Speaker 2: of them. It's a buy one's cry once situation, and
7:16
Speaker 2: it's worth it in my opinion. The same goes for binos.
7:19
Speaker 2: Cheap binos are almost a liability, while mid to high
7:22
Speaker 2: price binoculars are an asset. Again, listen, I realized this
7:27
Speaker 2: is up to an individual's personal finances, but an investment
7:31
Speaker 2: in optics will pay off much better than nickel and
7:34
Speaker 2: diming yourself every season buying bottles of dope and sent
7:37
Speaker 2: wix and shit like that. This is true if you
7:40
Speaker 2: plan to never leave the White Toe Woods, and unquestionably
7:45
Speaker 2: true and super important if you do plan to leave
7:48
Speaker 2: the White Toe Woods to travel to the mountains or
7:50
Speaker 2: the plains. Since most hunters are probably way more open
7:54
Speaker 2: to buying binoculars than a spotter. I'm gonna start there
7:58
Speaker 2: for me, I don't want to thing less than ten power. Now,
8:01
Speaker 2: that might seem like overkill if you're a big woods
8:03
Speaker 2: white tail hunter, I don't think it is. The difference
8:06
Speaker 2: in weight from these little six or eight power binos
8:10
Speaker 2: to a ten power is, in my opinion, kind of negligible.
8:13
Speaker 2: Doesn't really matter, but the ability to scan the woods
8:16
Speaker 2: in the fields effectively is noticeable. A common size is
8:20
Speaker 2: a ten by forty, which is ten x zoom and
8:22
Speaker 2: a forty milimeter objective lens. This also equates to a
8:26
Speaker 2: four milimeter exit pupil, which is the part that allows
8:30
Speaker 2: light to your eyes. Now, a ten by fifty would
8:33
Speaker 2: have the same magnification, but a five millimeter exit pupil,
8:38
Speaker 2: or put it in another way just to allow more
8:41
Speaker 2: light to reach your eyes. At noon on an analope hunt,
8:44
Speaker 2: it's not going to matter fifteen minutes before dark on
8:47
Speaker 2: a white tail hunt, it will. Now, either of these
8:50
Speaker 2: specs will give you a decent field of view. Now,
8:52
Speaker 2: if you try to go beyond ten X and magnification,
8:55
Speaker 2: you'll be able to zoom in on details far far out.
8:58
Speaker 2: But you'll also find that holding them by hand leaves
9:01
Speaker 2: you a little shaky, and you might be kind of
9:03
Speaker 2: wishing for a tripod. You'll also experience a smaller field
9:07
Speaker 2: of view. You'll notice that binoculars, or you know, binocular manufacturers,
9:12
Speaker 2: they advertise all kinds of prisms and codings that might
9:16
Speaker 2: not make much sense to you. They'll tut something like
9:19
Speaker 2: twilight factor, which is found by taking the ebjective lens
9:23
Speaker 2: and then multiplying that by the magnification, then looking for
9:26
Speaker 2: the square root of that number. I'll save you the
9:28
Speaker 2: time in the math and say that ten by fifties
9:30
Speaker 2: are better in low light than eight by thirty twos.
9:32
Speaker 2: The truth is binoculars tend to perform commensurate to their
9:35
Speaker 2: price tag, and that kind of sucks. A two hundred
9:38
Speaker 2: dollars pair with the same specs as a one thousand
9:40
Speaker 2: dollars pair is going to be built differently. It's going
9:44
Speaker 2: to be less quality, almost guaranteed. A thousand dollars pair
9:48
Speaker 2: compared to another thousand dollars pair. The different story. Playing
9:52
Speaker 2: with a few models in your price range will let
9:54
Speaker 2: you see which ones you like better. But I've gone
9:57
Speaker 2: off track here a little bit. This isn't a binocular
9:59
Speaker 2: buying guide, it's about how you use them. Well, scratch
10:03
Speaker 2: that for a second, because I see a hell of
10:05
Speaker 2: a lot of white tail hunters who don't use them.
10:07
Speaker 2: You don't see that out west, but in the whitetail
10:09
Speaker 2: woods it's pretty common. If you don't use them, you're
10:13
Speaker 2: missing out. Literally. Think about it this way. What if
10:16
Speaker 2: you're on the edge of a soybean field in late
10:19
Speaker 2: September and the sun tucks below the horizon and the
10:21
Speaker 2: clock is ticking, it's ten minutes before last light, and
10:25
Speaker 2: you see in the far corner of the field the
10:28
Speaker 2: shape of a deer that's out there feeding. It's just
10:30
Speaker 2: a gray blob at that point to your naked eye.
10:34
Speaker 2: You wonder, I don't know is it a buck or
10:36
Speaker 2: a dough. If it's a buck, is it a big one?
10:39
Speaker 2: You could know all those details and probably make a
10:41
Speaker 2: pretty good guess on where the deer came out from
10:43
Speaker 2: the woods from just with a quick glassing session. Without it,
10:48
Speaker 2: you're just getting less information to work off of. With it,
10:51
Speaker 2: you might be able to kill him the very next
10:53
Speaker 2: night because you'll know what he is and probably where
10:56
Speaker 2: he came from. Simple, right, So what if you're sitting
11:00
Speaker 2: in the woods, the big woods, let's say, and you
11:03
Speaker 2: catch some movement in the distance. It's a deer, you're
11:06
Speaker 2: sure of that, but you can't see any details because
11:08
Speaker 2: it's too thick. Again, you don't know what kind of deer,
11:12
Speaker 2: you don't know what it's doing, and you're basically running
11:15
Speaker 2: on low info. But you throw Bino's up to your
11:18
Speaker 2: eyes and you see that it's a buck and he's
11:19
Speaker 2: nibbling away on some kind of plant, back and forth,
11:22
Speaker 2: nom nom in his heart out. How actionable is that
11:25
Speaker 2: for you? The thing is good. Binos help you become
11:29
Speaker 2: a better decision maker out there. They aren't solely for
11:32
Speaker 2: seeing animals, and that's it. You can see animals, and
11:36
Speaker 2: then you can watch what they do, which is the
11:38
Speaker 2: important part. You can glass up the trails they take,
11:42
Speaker 2: the brush they browse on. You can use binos after
11:45
Speaker 2: you shoot and you're on the blood trail. You can
11:47
Speaker 2: use them to look for the arrow in the grass
11:49
Speaker 2: from your stands, see if it's covered in blood at all,
11:51
Speaker 2: decide if you should get down or you should wait.
11:53
Speaker 2: You can take them out west and scan the sagebrush
11:56
Speaker 2: for a group analope, or a meadow in the high
11:58
Speaker 2: country while you try to see if there's a wallow
12:00
Speaker 2: in there somewhere that an elk might visit. It's a
12:04
Speaker 2: shortcut to walking and a shortcut to guessing on what
12:07
Speaker 2: you're actually seeing. The key is getting used to them.
12:11
Speaker 2: So I'm going to offer a shameless plug here. Whatever
12:14
Speaker 2: binos you have or plan to buy, buy a good
12:18
Speaker 2: bino harness to go with them. We've been using the
12:22
Speaker 2: FHF gear fob the last year. And this isn't just
12:25
Speaker 2: because Mediator owns the company. I'm being honest. It's the
12:28
Speaker 2: best bino harness I've used. I freaking love that thing
12:32
Speaker 2: and it goes with me just about anytime in the woods,
12:34
Speaker 2: from shed hunting season all the way through the last
12:37
Speaker 2: days of the deer season. I keep it in my
12:39
Speaker 2: truck when I'm pheasant hunting and when I'm scouting turkeys.
12:42
Speaker 2: A good bino harness is important because you won't maximize
12:46
Speaker 2: your bino usage if your optics aren't convenient to get
12:50
Speaker 2: to trust me on this, it's important now. Of course,
12:54
Speaker 2: it's not all about just binoculars. I have sort of
12:57
Speaker 2: a weird thing with spotting scopes and that I try
12:59
Speaker 2: to find all kinds of uses for them naturally. If
13:02
Speaker 2: I'm working on a mule deer tag or an antelope tag,
13:05
Speaker 2: I have a spotter with me for white tails all
13:08
Speaker 2: summer long. You guessed it. Sometimes during the season too,
13:12
Speaker 2: if I'm trying to figure out exactly where they are
13:14
Speaker 2: feeding or watering right now so I can try to
13:16
Speaker 2: kill them tonight or tomorrow. I even started using a
13:20
Speaker 2: spotter to scout turkeys, and while that might seem like overkill,
13:24
Speaker 2: it's amazing watching birds from long range as they navigate
13:27
Speaker 2: the terrain. It allows me to set blinds for my
13:30
Speaker 2: little girls right where they need to be, and it
13:32
Speaker 2: almost feels unfair to the longbard's kind of like running
13:35
Speaker 2: trail cameras. For them, a good spotter is worth it.
13:40
Speaker 2: And for me, I like to go big. I like
13:43
Speaker 2: magnification from like twenty to sixty x with a big
13:47
Speaker 2: old eighty five millimeter objective lens. I look at it
13:51
Speaker 2: like it's my own James Webb telescope. I want to
13:54
Speaker 2: see things in great detail that are far away. Binoculars
13:58
Speaker 2: are great for scanning for close range work, but a
14:01
Speaker 2: spotter changes the game on long range work. If you're
14:06
Speaker 2: going out west, you really don't have much of a choice,
14:09
Speaker 2: except maybe for elk because you're not gonna want to
14:12
Speaker 2: carry a spot up a mountain in a lot of situations,
14:14
Speaker 2: but also for white tails. It's something to consider. While
14:19
Speaker 2: long range glassing has largely been replaced by trail camera usage,
14:23
Speaker 2: it's not the same thing, and it never will be.
14:26
Speaker 2: Watching with your own eyes what a buck or a
14:28
Speaker 2: bachelor group of bucks does when they get into a
14:30
Speaker 2: field is a vastly different beast than a series of
14:34
Speaker 2: trail camera images. Zooming in tight to a buck and
14:38
Speaker 2: watching how he browses along a row of soybeans or
14:41
Speaker 2: approaches a distant pond to drink. That's an education you're
14:44
Speaker 2: not going to get with a trail camera. It's a
14:47
Speaker 2: front row seat to deer behavior, and that is a
14:50
Speaker 2: show worth attending. It's also a lost cause without a
14:54
Speaker 2: decent tripod. You're not a pirate there glassing other ships.
15:00
Speaker 2: You're dealing with serious magnification. Steadiness is everything. If you're
15:05
Speaker 2: not steady, you're going to be frustrated and likely feel
15:08
Speaker 2: like you're wasting your time. It would kind of be
15:12
Speaker 2: like buying an eighty five thousand dollars bass boat and
15:14
Speaker 2: filling it with snoopy poles. As it is with binoculars,
15:18
Speaker 2: Spotter usage gets better the more comfortable you are find
15:22
Speaker 2: reasons to use a spotting scope. That turkey hunting example
15:25
Speaker 2: I just gave you might seem dumb and like overkill,
15:28
Speaker 2: like I said, but learning to use your optics in
15:30
Speaker 2: a low stress situation is not. If you spend March
15:34
Speaker 2: and maybe the beginning of April glassing long beards in
15:37
Speaker 2: the cut cornfield, you'll be a hell of a lot
15:39
Speaker 2: better off when you have an expensive non resident meal
15:42
Speaker 2: der tag in your pocket and you're perched on some
15:45
Speaker 2: high country hogs back looking for something to stalk. If
15:48
Speaker 2: you do find something to stalk, having binoculars snugged up
15:52
Speaker 2: to your chest so you can glass for velvet tips
15:54
Speaker 2: as you close the distance is equally as important. This
15:58
Speaker 2: is maybe the best lesson of this podcast, which is
16:01
Speaker 2: to learn to use your optics in real time in
16:05
Speaker 2: high pressure and low pressure situations. Glassing up a shed
16:09
Speaker 2: antler in February out of a pit cornfield might not
16:12
Speaker 2: seem like it'll help you as a deer hunter a
16:14
Speaker 2: whole lot, but it will. Certain tools like optics need
16:19
Speaker 2: to be used and understood in a variety of situations.
16:23
Speaker 2: You want to know how to set up your ee cups,
16:26
Speaker 2: how to dial in quickly to focus on a moving
16:28
Speaker 2: animal in the distance. You want to use optics to
16:30
Speaker 2: your advantage in a real way, and not just take
16:33
Speaker 2: them for granted that they might be a part of
16:35
Speaker 2: your hunt as a person who loves the outdoors. Put
16:39
Speaker 2: them to use in real situations in the off season,
16:42
Speaker 2: and then rely on them to figure out the whole
16:44
Speaker 2: thing once the season opens. Don't assume that you don't
16:48
Speaker 2: need binoculars or a spotter or the skills to use
16:51
Speaker 2: them correctly just because your hunting situation isn't the same
16:55
Speaker 2: as some Western dude trying to find a seventy five
16:57
Speaker 2: inch antelope out on the open prairie. Being a good
17:01
Speaker 2: successful hunter requires that you understand how and when to
17:06
Speaker 2: take that really close look or when it's better to
17:09
Speaker 2: sit back and take a bigger picture look at the
17:12
Speaker 2: animals and the land they inhabit, so that you can
17:15
Speaker 2: put together a plan for tomorrow or next month, or
17:18
Speaker 2: next season or whenever. At the very least, ask yourself
17:21
Speaker 2: what your optics game is like. Maybe you have a
17:24
Speaker 2: dialed or maybe you could level up if it's the
17:27
Speaker 2: latter work toward that goal. However you have to, however
17:31
Speaker 2: you can. Glassing is a skill that transcends in season
17:35
Speaker 2: efforts and off season efforts. It's valuable in the thickest
17:38
Speaker 2: woods and the widest open scenarios in which you might hunt.
17:41
Speaker 2: It's necessary, even if it doesn't always feel like it.
17:44
Speaker 2: It's also something I'm going to talk about next week.
17:47
Speaker 2: I want to break down how to figure out how
17:49
Speaker 2: to glass more efficiently in a variety of different environments,
17:52
Speaker 2: and how even e scouting can put you in the
17:54
Speaker 2: right position to use your spotting scope or your binoculars.
17:59
Speaker 2: That's it for this we my friends, as always, thank
18:01
Speaker 2: you so much for listening. I'm Tony Peterson and this
18:03
Speaker 2: has been the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast. If you
18:06
Speaker 2: want more hunting content, and I'm talking videos of hunts,
18:12
Speaker 2: how to videos on how to use gear. You want
18:15
Speaker 2: articles on all kinds of stuff, from obviously hunting, to fishing,
18:19
Speaker 2: to foraging to whatever. Thum meat eater dot com is
18:22
Speaker 2: your place. Head on over there and you'll have all
18:24
Speaker 2: the information you need and probably a lot more that
18:26
Speaker 2: you don't need.