Nocturnal Hunting Tools

One humid night in a Louisiana swamp I heard a sound along the bank of a creek. I flipped on the special flashlight in my left hand and held the beam directly on what proved to be a pair of raccoons looking for crayfish. Only about a dozen yards away, they went about their business completely oblivious to both me and the powerful beam of light illuminating them.



For the last few days I've been writing and re-working the nutria chapters of Eating Aliens. In the course of this I've been putting a lot of thought into what weapons and tools did and didn't work out. The biggest asset that I had out there in terms of tools was a pair of hand-held lasers by Laser Genetics.



Nutria are mostly nocturnal, so you can expect to typically hunt them in low light conditions. The tricky thing with hunting at night is being able to see your target and what is beyond it without scaring off the prey. If you scan constantly with a conventional light then you are going to scare off the nutria in all but the worst of infestations.



You have two options. First would be a night vision scope or sight. Those can work well but are extremely expensive. I've hunted feral pigs at night in Georgia with second generation night vision. It was good but not great. Pretty much you are looking at a 50 to 75 yard range maximum. Those scopes tend to run around $1,000 each. First generation night vision is so bad as to not be worth bothering with. Third generation night vision will set you back more than a decent used car.



The second option is to use a special light with a wavelength that nocturnal animals don't tend to respond to. The lights by Laser Genetics use a special green laser that I can affirm works as advertised.



I tested two different models for close to a week of hunting on the banks and backwater swamps of Lake Caddo in Louisiana. The ND-5 is a large and powerful model that can be adjusted for a very wide beam. It will set you back around $350, which is still way less than a night vision scope. The ND-3 is smaller, weaker and produces a narrow beam. It costs around $250. The ND-5 is much better but the ND-3 is still far better than having nothing at all.



Both models can be used as a hand-held flashlight or can easily be mounted above a rifle scope. When properly aligned with the beam, visibility through a scope is very good and the reticle was clearly visible.



The beauty of using one of these lasers as opposed to a night vision scope is that you aren't forced to buy one of the narrow selection of night vision scopes just because of the night vision feature. You can use whatever scope you prefer to hunt with in the first place. There is no need for compromise.



Night after night I watched many raccoons at very close range that completely ignored the green light I had pasted on them. They went about their business as if I wasn't even there, right up until they got downwind of me. Minks, nutria and snakes all ignored it unless the beam was near its most narrowly concentrated setting.



Nocturnal hunting isn't legal everywhere or for every species. It is legal for pigs in Georgia and in Louisiana I was named on a special permit for control of nuisance animals. With good optics or lights in the right setting I think that it can be perfectly safe. Nutria hunting almost by definition tends to offer a safe backstop. Usually nutria are hunted near the water's edge with a steep bank behind them. Over-travel of the bullet is not going to be an issue.



Nutria are most active at night. Any area where they are a problem will need to make some regulatory accommodations to allow night hunting in order to make a serious effort at reducing or eliminating them. Wild pigs tend to go nocturnal in response to hunting pressure and any effort at halting their ecological depredations is doomed to failure without making some allowance for hunters to intercept them at night.



It was with real regret that I returned that pair of Laser Genetics lights to Michael Beran, a wildlife control specialist from Bossier City who had been kind enough to loan them to me. Sooner or later I intend to pick up an ND-5 for keeps.



[Photo Copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers]