Glassing Tips- What works best for you? Unit 8 Hunt

[mrodri30]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm new to the site and wanted your opinion on glassing tips. I am taking my son on his first elk hunt in Unit 8 and in the past I have had trouble spotting animals in my binos. What are you best practice tips?

 

Do you pick a spot and stay at that spot come heck or high-water?

 

Do you quickly look over an area and if you don't see anything you move on to the next?

 

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys! Love this site!!

 

 

[Tac]

I usually will spend a hour plus in what I feel is a productive spot if I can glass a good distance. I always use a tripod and chair and go slow as I can stand for deer trying to pick out the small stuff. I will move if I feel I can be more productive elsewhere. I may also change angles and look over the same area again if I feel I,m missing the one I,m looking for. Animals may move in and out any time of day and you need to catch them and not blow them out of an area.

[jim]

Are you utilizing a tri pod and getting comfortable while you glass?

[mrodri30]

Thank you for your replies, I make sure that I use a tri-pod and I am comfortable but I feel that I'm sometimes in a place a bit too long and if I wait "a little while longer" I might see something. I'm not the best at judging a "good" glassing area from Google maps so most of the time I pick a spot that I "think" looks good from maps and go there. I know scouting would eliminate a bunch of this but life is pretty hectic right now working my jobs to provide for the fam has to come first. Thank you very much for the tips and advice!

[Red Rabbit]

What hunt does your son have?

[azslim]

give her a go for a few hours, move if you think you have covered the country, go over and over the same ground, what you are looking for may be on the other side of the tree and moves as the sun does, think about how the weather affects you, if it's hot and you want shade then so will the game so glass the shady side of the ground, if it's windy unfortunately you need to be in the wind to glass the lee side of the ground, the more time you spend behind glass the better you will get with it, have a glassing setup for your son too. I use Swaro's but have a pair of 15x50 Viper's that are my backups and loaners, my daughter will be using them this fall, with a tripod and pistol grip. I used to tell my students when I taught Hunter Ed that you can hunt all year round, but you can only shoot certain times of the year, practice your skills in the off season and it will pay off when you have a gun with you.

[KaibabHunter]

Good clean halfway decent glass, 10x42-15x56 and maybe a spotting scope of u can see for a long ways on a sturdy tripod. A chair and somethin to drape over ur head on a sunny day helps a ton. Time wise depends on how far u can see I guess, one ridge vs a whole mountain side. I will say 2 guys that mentored me a ton on desert deer told me to sit a knoll all day so i did. It wasn't a big area to glass and these days I woulda probably moved way earlier. I sat that sun up to sun down and with 20 minutes of light a very nice 4 pt muley stood up out of the little veign in the flats I had been looking over all day. Seems like most of the desert deer I glass up are 1-2 miles away on average. Sometimes closer/farther. Mid day can be good to to catch em shifting beds.

 

I've never hunted unit 8 but on my boys late bull tag last year we glassed up 7 bulls on the side of a big Mesa at about 3 miles. Next morning we moved into that area, still hunted the cedars, jumped a nice bull, followed him into a deep little canyon that opened up nicely and he shot a smaller bull coming up that canyon. Good luck!

[Allforelk]

What hunt does your son have?

This.

[G_E_E]

As a general rule you want to glass the south and east facing slopes during sun up, and the north or west facing slopes during mid day/sunset times.

[sherman]

Looks like unit 8

[wildwoody]

Glass over and over and over until my head fells like my head is going to explode. And then do it again the next day.