Deer stalking: Are night vision scopes good for deer stalking at dusk?

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Are night vision scopes good for deer stalking at dusk?

It is illegal to shoot deer from one hour after sunset until one hour before sunrise.

By George Wallace

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

I've been thinking about deer stalking with an early night vision telescopic sight. I know they are not as good as the new ones but do you think it would be useful for shooting deer in the hour after sunset and the hour before sunrise?

Deer stalking
GEORGE WALLACE
Frankly, no. Even in Winter the light lasts for quite a while after sunset and there is shooting light some time before sunrise.

As a general rule, if you can’t see your deer clearly through an ordinary scope, then it’s probably illegal to shoot it.

I think I have explained this business of sunrise and sunset before but it sounds as though a refresher might be appropriate.

It is illegal to shoot deer from one hour after sunset until one hour before sunrise and people generally assume that sunrise is when it starts to get light; and vice versa at dusk. It is not.

If you check the times of sunrise and sunset you may be surprised to see that it is full daylight at that time because the sun is about half its own diameter above the horizon.

It’s an astronomical thing so you don’t need to worry about the details; but do be aware that it is light for a long time after sunset and before sunrise.

Even today (December 8) when the morning was gloomy and the weather crap, sunrise was at 0814 GMT but my chickens had demanded to be let out quite some time before.

By 0730 it was light enough to see - with the naked eye - pheasants coming out of the wood more than 300 yards away.

It’s worth repeating: if the light is so poor that deer are difficult to see, then you should not be shooting them.