Ep. 88: Optics

I hope everybody had a great holiday weekend. Last week on the podcast, I answered a few listener questions, but this week I want to help you prepare for any upcoming hunt and dive into some gear talk while simultaneously answering the question that I get a lot, and that

question is what type of optics do I need? If I had to pick one piece of hunting gear that has really enhanced hunter success probably more than anything, I'd have to go with optics, or at least the advancement in optics, because optics play a huge factor and a big difference in the outcome of the hunt. Someone who is good at spotting game has a lot better chance of getting into range and punching a tag. But there are a lot of different choices on the market and

it seems endless with the possibilities. So this week I'm going to break down the optics category and go over the uses and importance of different features that will help you match what you need with your hunting style. We're gonna cover everything from binoculars, spotting scopes, high magnification binos, range finders, range finding binoculars, and rifle scopes. But before we do that, I want to share a story of one of the bigger bulls I've taken and how optics

and a few seconds made all the difference. The story takes place in eastern Nevada and is actually one of my first elk tags in the state. Took me a while to draw and I was really excited about Taggers Rifle elk tag, but unfortunately I only had a very limited time to hunt the tag because I was committed to guiding hunters in Montana through the end of the season, which was pretty much Thanksgiving, and then had a few days at the end before the Nevada season closed to

uh to hunt for myself. So my plan was I packed up my stuff after my last day of guiding, actually tagged my guys out a little bit early and was able to to cruise down there a little bit earlier and was meeting my parents down there because my Dad had that tag maybe probably four years earlier, and I had actually never even hunted the area. This was the way before there was a lot of online map

scouting or anything like that. So I was just gonna use a little bit of his intel, meet up with him, and then we were gonna go out and start glassing. So make it down there, drive all day, get set up first morning that I can hunt. We're kind of taking a look at the mountain from a long ways away. I'd say we're probably five miles from where we were looking.

We actually we're near the trucks. We set up like I don't know, like camp chairs and our spotting scopes on tripods and just started covering them out and just gritting the areas where we thought we'd find olk. Not having a lot of intel, this was kind of the first day in here. We're just trying to get a lay of the land and see what might be around. So we're glassing and I end up seeing a couple of cow elk move out of it. It's like really

thick timber, just there's one little opening. So I see a couple of cow olk and I'm like, oh, cows. I'm like talking about spotting cows and my parents are with me and they're glassing some different stuff and like, oh, I got some milk over here, and my mom's like, oh, is it by this one pile of rocks. I was like, uh No, it's more in the trees. It's like, oh, I think I see one by the rocks, and I'm pretty sure it's a bull. I'm like wait what So now I'm like, okay, well does she I don't know.

My mom loves to go. She's always like gone out with us when hunting. But she's not a hunter herself, but definitely loves like spotting. And she's always like a really lucky spotter. If there's gonna be somebody that spots something on the trip, it's probably gonna be here. And this is like barely early in the morning on their first day out. So I'm like, okay, see and uh I get look through her scope and sure enough there's a bull in there. But her scope isn't as good

as mine. So I get my scope set up, zoom in. I'm like, that's a pretty good bull. Long main beams, big six by six space that out long times. All right, I know the area has some giants but with very limited time maybe four days to hunt, and having never been in the area before, and now having like a pretty decent bull spotted like that looks good enough to me,

I'll definitely shoot that bowl. So now we're the troubles are about five miles away and this bull, so we watched him, We're like, okay, is he gonna what's he gonna do? Because not knowing their patterns in there, I figured he's going to move into some timber and bed. He's all by himself. It's way well after the rut. So the bull, it's pretty cold morning, the bowl actually moves toward the timber and then kind of cuts through a few patches. Watch him, and then he just plops

down beds. Sweet, but this is just a sea of really thick pinion juniper trees. All right, I'm gonna go up the canyon. You guys can stay here and watch. I'm gonna go up the canyon and see if I can respot him. It's pretty brushy, and I get to a spot where I think I should you know from five what we're looking at five miles away, and it looks about right from the landmarks that I took in

my mind. I pop up the opposite side of where the bull is, sit down up against the rock pile and start glassing with my binoculars, and I'm just like looking where. It looks like he was nothing, so I figured maybe he moved, but I just decided to keep keep looking in there, keep greeting it with my binoculars. I'm locked off real well. And then I see something. I'm like, that is not a stick. So I get out my spotting scope, zooming in and sure enough, it's

just the top few times of this bull. He's betting and he must be sleeping. Is this head kind of down? And the back two times of his whale tailors the only thing sticking up above the opinion juniper. I'm like, all right, So I move up the hill a little bit more, get a good position, and and I now I've got the spotting scope on him. I'm judging him. I'm like, yeah, that's that's about the minimum type of

bull I was looking for. But I'll definitely give it a try because I don't have a lot of time, and I don't want to eat tag soup on this tag that took me so long to draw. So I make a plan. I had actually started working up the canyon behind me, and uh, I waved him up. It's like, all right, just keep an eye on the bull and I'm gonna go up there. I don't know if I'll be able to see you or not, but if he ends up moving, stand up and wave your arms so if I can look back and see this spot, I'll

know that he's moved. At this point, he's still about him. I would say probably close to a mile away and a lot of elevation game to get up to where he's at. So I just decided I'm gonna hustle before he gets up and moves off into the thick stuff. I want to get there while he's still betted, So load up my pack and just start moving super steep hill and I'm just climbing up, climbing up. I've got

a good wind. The winds like quartering the direction, so I go up the canyon for work into the wind, and I just want to make sure I'm high enough on that point where I can pop over and he's there, So I start working into that spot. Everything feels good. I made some good landmarks. The thing that saved me is there's just one tree that was different than all

the others, a different type of tree. It's like an aspen tree coming out of all these opinioned juniper, which gave me a really good idea of where he was at. And so I get over and I start creeping up. There's like one ridge left to where I can probably get to take a shot, and I'm gonna be pretty close because it's kind of tight quarters in here. So I start working my way over there. I'm above where I think the elk is and I've got a good wind,

and then I hear just rocks rolling. I'm like, oh crap. Well I knew there was a scree slide just next to that bowl. I'm like, oh man, this is not good. So he definitely spooped. I run as fast as I can to the edge to see into the basin, and sure enough, there's that bull boogie in across the hillside. But it's a scree slope which is just a bunch of small, like loose rocks, just this big, huge scree slide, and that's where the bull decides to take his exit.

Like okay, well, I pulled up my binoculars. I had range finding binoculars. Range him get down it's like real fast action because I didn't have a lot of time, so I zoom my scope all the way up. I had ballistic lines in it, so I knew where it hit. And the bulls moving across, like perfectly broadside across the screen field across from me, and I know that he's working into that timber, and once he hits that, it's over. I kind of propped the rifle. I'm laying. I guess

it's probably all my legs. It's so steep. I'm kind of shooting downhill. I'm tracking the bull through my scope. Swing just past the bull, and I've got a twenty mile per hour windmark on there, and I just put that right on his shoulders, slowly squeezed the trigger. Boom, I hear the swap. I look up and the bulls just tumbling down the mountain stone dead, perfect shot, high shoulder. I'm like, sweet, so radio my dad. I'm like, hey, I got the bull. You guys want to start working

up here. I'm gonna work down to it, work down to the bull. And sure enough, one shot down, perfect shot, went through high shoulder, took out both lungs and it was just awesome. But it was one of those hunts where everything came down to spotting him from a long ways away, getting in position, having the right type of rifle scope, and being able to make a tricky quick shot super efficiently, super fast, and everything ended up working out, and at the time that was the best bowl I'd

ever taken. One question I get asked just a ton is what optics should I use for this type of hunt? Do I need a spotting scope? What do you what do you use for long range glassing? How far are my optics good for? Like how far should I be looking?

Just various things like that, and so what I wanted to do instead of just maybe giving you specific optics that I like, doing a huge overview of optics in general, running through all the categories of optics and then breaking them down based on like when I when I think about optics, what the uses are for each of those, and then tailoring making it so you can tailor that towards the type of hunting you like to do. Maybe you're thinking you've got to I mean, just like everybody,

you've got a certain budget. It's like, well, do I spend more money on a spotting scope or a pair of binoculars. Do I get a range finder or a really good rifle scope. I mean, as you get into hunting, if you're if you're especially if you're new to it, there's so much gear. There's so many things that are very expensive, most of the things that guys acquires over a lifetime of hunting, and you know, everyone wants to

add to their kit in a certain way. So I figured, if I give you this big broad view of optics in general, then we'll help you kind of pinpoint and focus on the things that are important, the things that maybe you might be looking into just for the type of hunting you do, and then maybe some stuff that might just be additional on top of that or maybe aid in certain types of hunts in another way. One thing I do will always like to mention as well as I work with for text Optics, it's a sponsor

of mine. I mean because of that, I get to use pretty much everything that they make. I've sampled in some way, which I think is awesome because it gives me a good breadth of their entire product category. So I can really speak to the different types of optics. Um But I always like to disclose those kind of things whenever I talk about gear and other things, because um, I just think it's important, but also there's a reason

that I like to work with them. I think that they've got a really good offering of a lot of great optics that are in a really good price range. As well. I've been working with them for a really long time, so a lot of my experience, uh lately has been with these type optics. So if you hear me mention certain ones that I've used, I can kind of talk about those optics a little bit more than

other ones that I haven't got to use. But even when I'm guiding or whatever, if somebody has a different pair, I would like to check things out, try a bunch of different stuff, but more focus than the specific optic on. This is just kind of the idea behind each optics. So we're gonna break it down into categories. We're gonna start with binoculars first. We're gonna go binoculars. Then we're gonna talk about spotting scipes, high magnification by US, range finders,

range finding buy US, and rifle scopes. So let's start with binoculars because if you're only gonna listen to a certain portion of this podcast. I think binoculars are the most important. If I were just split up. Let's say you've got a budget on an optics budget. I think that the majority of that budget should go into binoculars. And here's the reason. There's a couple of reasons behind it. But first of all, the binoculars are when I'm out hunting my eyes. I can't stress enough how much I

use my optics when I'm out there, particularly binoculars. Um everything else is kind of incidental to that. There's a lot of hunts that I go on where I actually just take binoculars because I'm trying to do some weight saving or other things. But binoculars are what I look through. People are always amazing, like, oh, how did you spot that? And I think they constantly think that I'm I'm only looking with my eyes. It's like my binoculars are to

my face more often than they are not. Even when I'm in close terrain, when I'm moving through the trees, I'm putting up my binoculars. I'm scanning. When I'm walking, I'm looking at every hill. I'm throwing my binoculars up constantly. If I'm driving and checking out a new spot, pull over,

get out, throw up, the throw up the binos. And because of this, it's like I'm looking through that glass almost all day, and so I want something that's high quality, because high quality glass tends to be a little more clear, a little easier spot, and just a little bit more I relief. I've talked about it in past podcasts where I say kind of like the varying levels of optics.

You can have one company that has something in the d fifty dollar price range up to dollars or more price range, So what's the difference and trying to find that good balance. I think that you really get what you pay for when it comes to glass. So if I were to pick one category where I want a little bit higher in, I'm gonna go with binoculars for that. Now, binoculars are broken down into two ways. So you've got your magnification and then your field of view, which is

your objective lens diameter. So your magnification is like your whom, your your how many times more are you seeing what you're looking through? So we're gonna break down binoculars down into the categories. I would say the gold standard is ten by forty two, So that's ten power magnification forty two field of view, So that's how wide you're seeing through that single look. Now, if we bumped that up the objective lens up to a fifty millimeter lens, we're

gonna get a lot more fueld of view. So through looking at one thing, like looking through those binoculars, you can see more out of that peripheral vision. It widens that view. UM. I think that for western hunting application, ten by forty two's are just gonna be the go to. If there happens to be a ten by fifty, that's great as well, a little bit wider field of view, but ten power seems to be kind of that sweet spot. And here's why it's really good because it's enough magnification

to look over long distances. I use my ten power binoculars to glass legitimately five miles or more. UM. It might seem like, how do you even what size do they look like? From their things are very small, but there's certain areas you can look and and really start to pick out animals, especially when it comes to elk. Ten powers also really versatile because when you get into timber, it's not too much magnification for those close up views,

but we're gonna go over other optics as well. So the next category for magnification, one that's really popular is an eight by forty two. This is a little bit less magnification than the ten by forty two, but the same field of view. Now you gotta think, though, if you're zoomed in only eight times and you have the same forty two millimeter objective lens, you're gonna see a lot wider through. The eights eight power are really great

for a lot of applications. Um. The nice thing about that wider field of view but still a decent magnification is when you're looking at a hill, especially in that mid range that like what could be far maybe up to a thousand yards or closer, you get more of that hill in one glance, and that helps you start to pick things out a little bit easier. Another great thing about the eight power is for guys to spend

a lot of their time hunting more timbered areas. Let's say you're you're primarily a tree stand hunter or white tail hunter. You're hunting in areas with a little bit or a lot of timber, and then you're gonna come out west every few years whatever. Um, this is a really good pair of binoculars because you've got that more field of view in that timber or even if you're a Western hunter hunts like more timbered areas, you've got

that field of view. It's still plenty of magnification to spot things at distance, and you've just got like a little bit wider field of view when it comes to um your other hunts where you're maybe more stationary, but you can start picking things out in the distance behind brush and trees, using them from a tree stand or in a more timbered area. So that's a really great optic to have, and I would say that that's probably the standard one that most guys outside of like Western

hunting applications gravitate towards now in recent years. Twelve by fifties. I'm gonna put these in with like standard chest pack binoculars. So there's high magnification binocular that we'll talk about later, but I think twelve power is kind of the top end that you would want for for a chest like your go to, every day, every day carry binocular. I hunted exclusively with twelve by fifties for a very long time.

Now I think they're They really excel in a quite a few different types of hunts, but primarily like back country real open country hunts. Some people worry about the twelve power magnification being a little too much in close range in timber um. I use them still like when I'm when I'm still hunting elk hunting, I'll use them in the in the timber as well as I'm moving through glassing, it is a little bit more zoomed. You

have a lot less field of view. The fifty objective kind of helps you see a little bit more in that field of view, but that twelve power is going to be a lot tighter when it comes to glassing something close. It takes a lot more time to glass an area that's closer with twelve by fifties than it does eight by four eight by four gees. You can throw up, you see a large portion of the hill, and you can pick things out easier. If you're at

a close range. You've got those twelve by fifties. It's gonna take a little bit longer, but when you you're gonna be a lot more zoomed in. You're gonna have a lot more clarity of what's in what you're actually looking at. I really like those higher magnification binoculars for alpine type hunting, so backcountry hunts, especially where it's it's

high alpine. I know that most of my glassings might be long distances I'm glassing in areas that might be more open or highly glass intensive hunts where it's like, Okay, I'm gonna be behind my glass for a long time. That extra magnification is really nice, especially when I put it on a tripod. But I don't think that the

twelve power is too high to hand hold. I've hand I handheld them for a very long time with a lot of success, So on those kind of hunts, I actually preferred the twelve by fifties because it kind of cut a little bit of weight having to bring maybe a spotting scope or something else depending on the type of hunt. And we'll get into that next when we

start talking about spotting scopes. But twelve by fifties are really good, especially if you're high alpine, maybe places like Alaska where you might be glassing over really long distances

of maybe tundra or like open skate. Even things like backcountry hunts in Colorado or or open country like Nevada that more desert arid type stuff where it's really really glass and intensive, and you've got just a higher power binocular on your chest on your everyday harness where you can throw those up and get a little bit more magnification.

Or areas where it's maybe you're glassing into real harsh lights you're trying to glass into maybe underneath patches of junipers from distance, or areas where you know you're gonna be glassing a long way. Twelve by fifties seem to be key. So there's three types of binoculars based on magnification, and each one kind of specializes in a different sect of hunting. But I would say that there's not one

that um wouldn't work for all applications. So what I like to do when I'm thinking about binoculars is, if it comes down to, okay, I'm getting one pair of binoculars, I would really pick the binocular that fits with the majority of my hunts. Now, most people probably gravitate to the ten by forty two is because it's the most versatile in a large range of hunting applications. So the next category is gonna be high magnification binos. So what that would be is, I would say anything over those

twelve power binoculars. Popular ones would be fifteen power, fifteen by fifties eighteen power or up to twenty power binoculars. The benefit to high magnification binoculars is it gives you that ability almost like you're glassing through a spotting scope, but you can leave both eyes open. There's a lot less eye fatigue. They're really good for optics intensive glassing.

I would say that for a lot of hunts, high power binoculars are kind of that in between between your your chest binoculars and your spotting scope, and in many cases you might need kind of all three. So that does add to the weight. But I will say for very optics intensive hunts, they're really good to have. If you are living the south West or really arid places, high powered high magnification binoculars are a game changer in

many instances. I would put them on the list of needs, kind of near the bottom of like that, once you already have everything else, here's a fun incidental that you can take on those certain strips. Now, if you live in Arizona, maybe Nevada, you've got like you're accused, deer hunter. Or one hunt that I use them on more than anything spring bear hunting. When I'm just sitting all day looking at a hill that's a certain distance away, trying to pick out something that's about as tall as the

brush that I'm looking at. Being able to look through high magnification binoculars, I can just look through them through a longer period of time, and it's a lot more comfortable than staring through my handheld binoculars or even a lighter magnification binoculars on the tripod, because I can really pick it apart, but it's not is eye straining as looking through a spotting scope. So there are some really really good hunts that high powered, high magnification binoculars are.

I would say an advantage another hunt that I like to bring them on is I'll have my chest binoculars. And there's so many hunts where backcountry hunts, maybe more open country, where I might not be necessarily trying to nitpick exactly the size of what I'm looking at. I would say I don't really need a spotting scope, but I do want that extra magnification for verification on what

I'm looking at. So there's a lot of back country hunts where I throw those in because they might be a little bit lighter or maybe even the same weight

as my spotting scope. But I know that I can look through them longer, and I might not know the type of country that I'm getting into, but I know there's gonna be some some good areas where I can use that extra magnification to maybe glass the top of the mountain without having to walk up there, or really pick apart some more thick cover areas with those binoculars

for a longer period of time. So there's a lot of hunts where those high magnification binos are really good binocular to have, and I really, I mean I use that find myself using those more and more on a

lot of hunts where it's really optics intensive. If you live in an area where that's the type of hunting you're gonna be doing, maybe this is something you're gonna want to start to look into, and maybe it might even be something that you think about before getting a spotting scope for certain types of places in certain type of hunting. Next up, we're gonna be talking about spotting scopes. So I think of the spotting scope like this. The

spotting scope is in addition to my binoculars. I think it's very hard if there's I've I know guys that do this, and it's just it doesn't really work for me and doesn't really work well for a long period of time. I believe that guys use their spotting scope is their main method of glassing. For me, it just doesn't work because one you're you're only one I focused, so it kind of jacks with your vision a little bit, causes a little bit more eye strain over a long

period of time. Um, and it can be difficult to really focus in. Now I've developed some tactics where it's a little bit easier to glass with that one eye, where I I throw my jacket over myself so I can keep both eyes open but really shade my other off eye so I can focus in on what I'm

looking through through the spotting scope. But um, for me, the spotting scope is primarily used on hunts where I'm either looking really long distances, being fairly picky when it comes to what I'm looking for, or in an area or type of hunt that's very glass and intensive, so meaning that I'm using my binoculars a lot, but then maybe I'm at a good glassing vantage, and for me to walk over and verify maybe a waste of time when I can just take out my spotting scope and

double check what I'm looking at. There's very few hunts where I personally don't take a spotting scope, But the type of spotting scope I prefer to take depends on the type of hunt that I'm doing. Now, I'm very fortunate that I have get a try a lot of spotting scopes and have multiple spotting scopes that I use for various applications. I would say spotting scopes are similar in the way that you've got your magnification and then your objective lens, and what you're gonna get from that

is your magnification. You know, we'll have some m zoom factor, So some might be twelve to sixty power, some might be twenty two eight power. I would say, like a probably a good mid range spotting scale. We're gonna be like that fifteen power probably with like a sixty or sixty five objective And what that is is so that objective lens is your outer lens that gives you your field of view. But what it also does is is

light gathering. So the larger your objective lens, the more light that's going to come in, the better it is at those crepuscular times morning and evening, or looking into

harsh shadows in harsh lights. So on the times when a spotting scope is really handy, you might think it is like morning and evening, but actually I use it a lot middle of the day to look into those betting areas where I can look at them out and say, okay, there's shade right there, pull out my spotting scope, crank it up to max power, and really look underneath the trees, underneath the shadow, in that stuff that's real dark, where those animals are going to be at that time of day.

I really find the spotting scope helpful for that. So if we're thinking about spotting scopes and their application, like I said, it's it's more of a verification. So if I've got a good a limited entry draw tag I've got, or I'm hunting meal, dear or something that's fairly glass and intensive um and maybe I'm looking for a certain type of meal, or maybe a one seventy or a big four by four, a mature meal dear, a spotting scope is really going to be key to making that

hunt more successful. Where I can sit down on my glassing knob, I can look for deer. Okay, I see a deer way off from the distance, I can pull out my spotting scope and analyze that deer. Is it a dough? Is it a buck? Is it something that I want to walk over there in stock? Now? Should I can? I be able to follow that deer through the spotting scope till it beds and gives me an advantageous time for a stock. Now on the flip side, if you're a guy's like, hey, I'm just here for

I'm on an elk hunt. I just want to kill a legal bull. I'm packing in I'm going backcountry. Any bull elk will do? You know, spotting scope may not be necessary because it's a lot of extra weight, and what you're really looking for is, for the most part, you can tell the difference between a bull elk and a cow oak from a very very long ways away, just based on the color of their hide. Bulls are a lot more blonde. They're a lot lighter dark on the front end, blonde in the middle. I mean, I

can throw my bionoes up. I've looked at a lot of elk, though, but throw my bionoes up five miles away and say, yeah, there's a bull in that herd. Now, whether it's a spike or whether it's a mature bull, you know, it can be difficult to tell. But for all intents and purposes, like, hey, yeah, I'm willing to go hunt that, I'll go over there, get closer, see if I can get in on him, and then I may not necessarily need the weight of the spotting scope.

But there's a lot of hunts and applications where that spotting scope is crucial to the hunt. You know, it's crucial to being able to identify what you're looking at, saves you that let your eyes do the walking. Being able to zoom in and see what you're looking at can be really key on most hunts. Now, the weight and the size and the zoom of your spotting scope can vary. So I would say, let's do the fifteen We'll go fifteen by to forty five magnification by sixty

five objective. This is probably something close to that is gonna be kind of like that ten by forty two binocular. It's going to be the most versatile, and you're kind of balancing weight verse light transmission and magnification. So something in that range is probably going to be the right balance for everything from backcountry hunting to kind of day

hunt type hunting. Now, if you're the kind of person that's like you're looking for a certain type of animal every time you go hunting, Uh, there's a lot of places. You know, growing up in Nevada, tags can be few and far between. So when you get a tag, it's like, I want to make the most out of this tag um And you know, I spend a lot of time

glassing on those kind of hunts. I actually would just sacrifice carrying a little bit more weight and get something more like a twenty to sixty power magnification with maybe an eighty five objective where it's got a bigger objective, more like gathering a little bit more magnification, where I can really zoom in, I can really focus in on stuff, I can check things out far far away, I can look into those shadows and really maybe see something in the middle of the day and use that scope and

really just put that scope to work. Then that's probably what I'm going to look at now there's a flip side. And one thing that I carry probably more than anything, is just a super lights like a thirty three mill objective. I think it's UM eleven to thirty three power magnification spotting scope because for a lot of backcountry hunts, I just need that spotting scampe to verify. Yeah, that's something I'm willing to chase, but I don't necessarily need to

glass through it for prolonged periods of time. I'm not really trying to pick stuff out in the middle of the day, but if I needed to, I've got it as a backup, So that's always an option as well, like a more lightweight backcountry style spotting scope, And with each one of these there's just kind of weight ratios that factor into it. Now. Also, when you're talking about spotting scopes, you've got angled verse straight. This is a big debate for a lot of people. Me personally, I

don't know. I've always just used straight because I like that target acquisition of it's just intuit If I can look at it, I can be glassing with my binoculars. I can throw the scope up. I don't even have to think about it, don't have to readjust the tripod. I don't have to readjust anything. It's all just right there.

But I will say, like, for if you're glassing real steep stuff, and angled scope is really nice where you can have it a little bit lower to the ground, a more natural head position, especially when you're glassing from a valley floor up a lot, it's really good. Um, the angled can be okay, it can be a little awkward when you're glassing like real steep down, but you can actually on all of them turn them sideways a

little bit. I will say, though, it can get very hard to get used to to find that target real fast. So if you spotted something with your binos like, oh, I'm gonna go spot it now, and you've got your angled scope, and if you aren't used to it, it can get a little bit tricky to find sometimes. But it for for a lot of people, it's it's a little bit more comfortable to have that angled eyepiece than straight.

If you're a guy that does a lot of like glassing from the vehicle where you might drive glass a long distance, you've got a window mount, I think the straight works a lot better for that, which actually I mean that's a really effective way for scouting, you know, checking a bunch of multiple points and looking really far away. A lot of guys have, like especially Western guys that are really looking for a certain type of animal. I mean, I see a lot of guides some of the guys

that killed the biggest animals every year. It's because of a window mount and a really high power spotting scope. They drive to locations, they cover a lot of country and they let their eyes do the walking. And that's probably they're probably got a straight spotting scope with maybe eighty five mill objective and something that cranked up to sixty power and that works really well. So um, that kind of gives you an overview of spotting scopes. Now

we're gonna move over to range finders. When it comes to range finders, I think that you know you would you would almost instantly think, Okay, the range finder that goes the furthest is going to be the best. But that's not always the case because there's a lot of nuances with range finders where a certain range finder does something but it lacks in something else. Just like every piece of optics, there's one that's really good for situation

but has a negative downside. There's a spotting scope that has really high magnification, good light gathering, but it's super heavy, hard to carry in the back country. Um, the same thing happens with range finders. So a range finder just because it goes really far may not be the best application for you. Now, I like a range finder that ranges a long ways, especially when I'm rifle hunting or

for planning a stock. I think there's nothing better. But one thing you want to look for when you're looking at range finders, well, what kind of hunting do you mostly do? If you're mostly an archery hunter, you've got to make sure that that range finder that goes really

far maybe calculates within bow ranges. There's some range finders that are really good, really accurate out to far distances, but maybe don't range anything under a hundred yards, or maybe don't do angle calculations under a hundred yards, and vice versa. Maybe there's some range finders that are great for archery, but they don't do angle calculations past a

certain yards for rifle hunting. So what I like to do is I like to find a range finder that's really got a little bit of both, where go out to the distances that I would rifle shoot, but also is effective for archery hunting, because I primarily archery hunt.

And one thing that I would say is a feature I must have in every range finder is going to be angle compensation, So some kind of compensation for the angle when you're if you range something, you know it does that A square plus B squared equals C squared automatically in the range finders, so you don't have to do calculations. Since range finders have done that, it's made well me personally a lot more successful and have to have a lot less gadgets. When I first had a

range finder, it's like sweet. It just ranged straight. And I actually had a stick on in kilometer on there that had a thumb button, so I would range it and then I would hit the thumb button and hold this like it's almost looked like a almost like a compass, and then would tell me my angle. This is all like very premous stuff. And then I had on a cut chart on my wrist. I would have like a wrist guard that keeps the string from slapping your arm.

I would have had a cut shirt on there, and then I had one in my pocket and so I could look at that and I would look at the range, look at the angle, and then follow the chart to see the horizontal compensated distance. Now you don't have to worry about that. The range finder just does it all for you, which is really nice. So you want to make sure that for your application that works for whatever

you're doing. So whether if you're a rifle hunter and you're like, it's a hundred yards less doesn't matter, it's just point and shoot, but out to five yards, I want to know that angle compensation. I want to make sure that I can get a really good range out further distances, make sure it's super accurate. Then you're gonna

want one of those really high power range finders. Now, if you're a bow hunter in that high power range finder doesn't work under a hundred yards or doesn't compensate angle under hunter yards, you're probably gonna want to look for something else. So that's what I look for when I'm thinking about range finders. The next category is gonna be range finding binoculars. Now you think, okay, range finding binoculars.

I I love range finding binoculars, especially when I'm guiding, because it allows me to be hands free I can be glassing and then also calling out ranges to the person next to me, saying okay, yep, a hundred yards to earners, especially when something is moving you're in the action. I don't have to switch between two things. I've got

my range finding binoculars right there. I actually just started testing out a pair of range Vortex range finding binoculars that have ballistic A B curves and data that can send it to different devices as well, which is really cool because I can click it, have all my input data in there and then know, okay, three minutes of angle. Or if I'm guiding someone, I could say, hey, give me your give me your bullet, give me your drop compensation,

give me everything. I can input this, and then right there within the unit, I can either do that or have it sent to my watch or whatever. There's just so many applications for especially for long range shooting. They're awesome. I used range finding binoculars for a very long time and it's a really fast, efficient way to to use a bino and a range. It combines two really good things. There are a few drawbacks, however, One they're they're heavy.

They can be fairly expensive as well. Um I think one of the major drawbacks with range finding your binoculars is the fact that the the button for the range finder has to be on one side or the other for most of them. I think there might be somewhere you can switch the button on whichever side you want, but you have to think of it like this. If I'm bow hunting right, I'm generally holding my bow with my left hand, so I'm gonna want to range finding

binocular with the button on the right side. Well, I shoot right handed if you're left handed, to be the opposite, So because my hand is gonna be holding the bow, I could take the binoculars out hit the range I had the first pair I ever had. I had to reach over and press the button with my left like it was on the left side, but I'd hold it with my right hand. There's like this weird awkward reach over thing. Now the exact opposite. If you're a rifle shooter,

you're you're gonna be a right handed rifle shooter. The gun's gonna be shouldered on your right side, You're gonna pull the binoculars out with your left hand, and you're gonna want to be able to operate that with your left index finger. So just something to think about. Um, it's kind of like picking a range finder for your application. Range finding binocular kind of for your application as well.

If you're a bow hunter, make sure that it has the features that you want for bow hunting, and then obviously it'll be able to do some of the other stuff as well. If you're primarily a rifle shooter, you know, kind of think about something around that that rifle like range finding binocular for the rifle and actually the new ones they can be a little bit complicated with all the ballistic data. But man, if you're into that, if you're into long range shooting, that's I think that's the

best scenario in my opinion. If I'm going out on a rifle hunt or I'm guiding rifle clients, first binocular will probably put on. It's just range finding binocular with ballistic data in it, because it just makes everything so streamlined so fast, and it's a really cool technology to have. Plus you've got a good optic as well. Now the last piece optic would be your rifle scope. And I I remember reading an article. I don't even know where

it was at. It's just a long time ago. And it was like the thought of you know, for the longest time, it's always been rifles, right, those rifles, And then it's like, but I think that if you were to spend let's say you spent five on a rifle and then put a rifle scope on it, you've just kind of rendered like, this really really good rifle quite useless.

Most rifles shoot pretty good, even like factory made box store rifles shoot pretty decent, and sometimes that accuracy is just comes down to the rifle scope that you put

on it. So if I were to pick the two things that I would probably put my money on, it would be binoculars first and rifle scope second, because you want to be able to hit what you're shooting at and you want that gun to be accurate, and you want to make sure that that accuracy isn't a factor of the scope that you've put on top of it, and people don't sometimes understand how much that can affect

the accuracy. Things like parallax shadowing. If you don't have your cheek exactly where it's supposed to be when you the same time you shot last time, and your head it's a little bit different, and that right, that's that crosshair tends to move like it looks like it's moving in scope, which often happens in cheaper scopes that don't have as much many features or or different type of

um focal plane. Then you might think that that rifle is fairly inaccurate, when it actually is just the scope itself. I've had scopes on rifles that I shot really well, but handed to another guy and it's like they shot completely different because the way that they were looking their cheek world was a little bit different. The way that they look through that scope was a little bit different, and there wasn't any way to adjust that. So when it comes to rifle scopes, there is a myriad of

different features functions. I mean, you can get so specific for the type of If you are a guy that likes to shoot long range, long distance targets, there's a rifle scope for you. If you're a guy that shoots um the backwards from your tree stand at twenty yards, there's a rifle scope for you. There's different rifle scopes with different types of raticles that light up that do. I mean, there's more different types of rifle scopes than

I could possibly covered in fifty podcasts. But what I'm what I do want to cover is just kind of the basic um features of some rifle scopes and kind of some things that I think are important when you're looking at a rifle scope. So let's start with the basic rifle scope. Rifle scopes, just like all these other optics we've talked about, have the magnification and objective lens.

So uh, kind of the standard for a very long time would be like a two to ten so two power to tend power probably by maybe a forty or forty four middle objective. I think. Now for me personally, I like anything in the four to sixteen power or

even higher. I like that sixteen magnification. I like being able to bump it up a little bit, even up to twenty power magnification is nice because for my rifles, I like to be able to shoot a little bit of distance as well, So I think having that being able to zoom in even when you're at a hundred yards, it's nice to be able to crank that rifle up. Now, when it comes to the radical inside, we'll just go with like the basic radical that's just a standard cross hair.

This is fine for a lot applications, especially if you're just shooting pretty much fixed distance the furthest you're ever going to shoot the hundred yards, then you don't really need all the bells and whistles. A standard cross hair two to ten that's perfect. If you're mostly hunting thick timber, you're probably gonna be zoomed out to that to power. Anyways, that's a great scope to have just a fixed ratical

in there. Great. Now, if it was me and I'm buying a rifle scope that I'm gonna use for different different things. Maybe we're gonna hunt mealed here. Maybe you live and you're hunting white tails primarily, but you might go out and hunt elk, whatever it is. I like any kind of scope that has some form of hold over or drop compensation adjustment in it. I personally like to use an adjustable turret, but I like a radical

that has some form of drop compensation. So what that is is I can cite my cross hair in and then there's something underneath it, like a line or mill dot or something that in the scope I can look through and know that at a different range, this is where I hold for at If you've got that basic crossair you can just use the cross air and then

the pope. I used to do the same exact thing with just the primary crossair and then the post as knowing where that post was and then knowing how far from that post and the main crossair various ranges were. That was all well and good, but it's not necessarily precise.

So it's really nice, especially for Western hunting applications, to be able to know where you're holding, what your holdovers are, and how to shoot it a little bit further distance, whether it's three hund yards, three d fifty yards or out to five hundred yards. It's really good to have something to focus on to aim with. One thing you'll see on rifle scopes might be something called the first

focal plane. The first focal plane scope means that the relationship of what that crossair represents as you're looking through it is the same regardless of magnification. So on a first focal plane scope you gotta think of it like this, um as I zoom out, the crosshairs actually zoom out, and as I zoom in, the crosshairs actually get larger. Because what it does is it makes that whatever I'm looking through at that magnification, the representation in the in

the scope. I think some people get confused. They get these scopes that have different lines in them and they can use them, but it might not be a first focal plane scope. So if you're form power magnification that scope, that first mark below your crosser means something completely different than when it's on full magnification, say fifteen or sixteen powers. So it doesn't matter which one you do. You just need to know which system it is and then how

to use it. So if you've got those lines in your scope, that first line down is you sighted in for two hundred yards, next one downs three, next one downs four hundred, bottom ones five, But it only means that it's sixteen power magnification or full magnification. Then when you're shooting it, you need to make sure that it's turned up to the full magnification and you're shooting it for the correct distance with those lines. So I'd say when I think about getting a rifle scope, I like

something that. I mean, it's just like anything. You've got the weight ratio, you've got the functions and the features and different things you like. Me personally, my ideal scope has an adjustable turret because I like to adjust for the exact conditions that I'm in. I don't like it pre done. I don't like pre numbers. I like to use a ballistics data to trying to adjust that turret. I like one that has the locking turrets on it,

so that the windage and the elevation is locked. I prefer one mostly the only thing I'm going to use in that scope is a windage turret, So that's kind of the scopes that I go for. And then I like something in the four to sixteen power range um maybe by fifty mil objective. It's a little bit heavier, but it's a little bit more light gathering. And then something where it's got an adjustable parallax. So at the different ranges, what I'm doing is I'm kind of getting

rid of that parallax shadowing that I talked about. So when your head is in maybe a little bit slightly different position, especially for field shooting, you might be in like kind of a weird angle or slightly different position. I can adjust that for the range so I don't get as much shadowing, and that cross hair is like true to where it should be shooting. And those are

the features that I personally like. Now on the flip side, I've got a gun that's a real light gun, and I just put a real basic light scope in it that doesn't even have a first vocal plane. It's got uh different stadi alignes for the different yardages, but it has to be on full magnification. It's a really light scope.

It doesn't have all the bells and whistles. The parallax that doesn't have a real like bad parallax problem after testing it, And so I just put that on a lightweight gun to keep the gun lightweight, to keep everything simple, and you do not have to think about so many moving parts because it's a gun that I'm not really going to be shooting super far, and in a hunting scenario, it's great for hunting, quick target acquisition and works really great.

So I think kind of picking a rifle scope for the type of shooting you like to do and the type of hunting you like to do, just like all these optics, kind of tailoring it to what you are planning on doing the type of hunting and the style that you like, is going to be the first step in deciding, Okay, which optic is right for me, and then going from there and picking one that really works. I really hope this optics run down a lot of you.

I just get that asked questions so much about optics that I wanted to give this broad overview and it kind of help you think about maybe some things that come to my mind when I think about, Okay, what

optics would be the good optic to have? And this is a really good way to think about it is making kind of your kit very specific to the type of hunting that you do for the majority of your hunting, but also where it can reach out and and do things for if you go on another kind of hunt or you start to hunt in another type of area.

You know, for me, I prefer higher magnification binoculars, but I also don't hunt as much heavy cover, so when I do, my binoculars work great for that because it's not a lot of time spent there, but it works really good for the majority of my hunting purposes. So that's just something to think about. I think next week I'm going to jump into kind of doing the same

thing with another topic. Another type of gear that I get asked about as much as anything would be boots and packs two things that I think it's just weight, airing and a strenuous activity. So it's something that is inherently uncomfortable, and you're trying to take a product and make it more comfortable. So I'm gonna cover the types of boost and the types of packs that I look for when I'm planning either a backcountry hunt, a day hunt, a prolonged hunt, maybe a hunt in rocky rough country,

or a hunt more in the plane. So I'm gonna go over the types of packs and the types of gear and the things that look for, very similar to the way that we just did the optics. So until next week, I hope you are looking forward. There's a little pun in there to what we have in store for more gear selection stuff. I'll catch you guys all next week and see you later another pun optics