Aren't they just? Really superb for me - now carry just them rather than glass binos, hand held thermal and hand held RF.
Have any of you swapped your German scope for Day/Night scopes? (HIK Micro Alpex)
- Thread starter 12borejimbo
- Start date
I’m not as subtle as @Klenchblaize - I’ll give you £150 for the 6-24x56 Diavari 
To answer your original question, I’ve done exactly what you’re enquiring about this doe season. I took a 6-24x56 Diavari off my 6.5 & mounted an Alpex 4K LRF.
Fair to say I’ve now shot a good few deer with this set up & whilst there have been a few deer I’ve shot that I’m 100% certain I wouldn’t have shot with the Diavari it’s not a significant proportion of the total but it has increased my cull figures noticeably. And I have shot deer very late on with the Zeiss this winter too but you are shooting at silhouttes & need to be confident with the angle the deer is stood at, where the aiming area needs to be & where your aiming mark is - the beauty of the Zeiss is the little red dot in the middle
My findings have been that in woodland the image quality due to low light (not using an IR as that’d be illegal for deer) has been so poor that I don’t think there’s any advantage using the Alpex over the Zeiss.
On open ground, such as from a highseat on the edge of a wood looking across fields, there is an advantage & this becomes even greater when it’s a clear night with no cloud cover. I’ve deliberately sat out past the end of the hour after sunset & could readily have shot deer out to 200 yards with the Alpex. Last weekend I shot a fallow at 209 yards 45 mins after sunset & the picture was still in colour as it hadn’t needed to switch to night mode yet due to available light.
I have also shot deer in the morning when I’ve literally been looking at the time in the scope waiting for the hour before sunrise to kick in!
What I have learned is that there are some limitations to the Alpex that put it a long way behind the Zeiss in certain conditions.
Typically with the Zeiss I am happy to shoot until about 40 mins into the last hour & possibly later depending on circumstances - I will mentally reduce my shooting distance as it gets darker as well as dropping out smaller quarry. So, for example, I’m happy to shoot a Muntjac at 200 yards in daylight but as it gets darker I’ll drop that to 100 yards & then not at all - while at the same time I might be happy to shoot a fallow at 100 yards if that all makes sense.
I keep the Zeiss on 8x as that gives a 7mm exit pupil, increasing it to 12x for the muntie at 200 yards or even up to 24x for a fallow at 300 yards, etc.
With the Alpex I have learned the hard way that I can’t adopt the same approach when using it.
In low light I leave it on 3.5x & keep ranges to around 100 yards. The rest of the time I have it on 7x as higher than that I cannot rely 100% on the ‘zero’ due to the way it interpolates the data from the sensor & displays it in the screen.
I’ll be up front & say I have had 3 instances that I would rather not repeat & which have been a very valuable aid in learning how to use the Alpex effectively & humanely. By mentioning them I hope it helps others avoid similar or worse happening - anyone who wants to slag me off or claim I shouldn’t be shooting if I can’t kill them can FRO as my old boss used to say - we can all learn by others mistakes & none of us are too old to learn!
The first incident was one morning when after shooting a pricket on a ride at very dark o’clock using 3.5x I saw a muntie in daylight, pinged it with the LRF & the ballistic calc gave me a distance of 225 yards & a second aiming mark to use. I wound the mag up to 28x, settled the ‘X’ & squeezed. The muntie jumped as expected & shot into cover - great I thought it’ll be dead just inside the wood. Got there & not a sign of it, found the shot site & small amount of cut hair, no skin, no blood, no bone. Fetched the dog from the car, he found the shot site but nothing to follow. Watched the video back & everything as expected. Conclusion was the bullet had gone just under where the cross was showing in the image.
Second instance was a fallow doe one morning after sunrise, pinged with the LRF at 278 yards, wound the mag up to 28x then popped the ‘X’ just up behind the front leg & squeezed. Doe reared up on back legs spun around & charged off down the field with front end dropping & then ploughed into the ground. A little bit surprised at the shot reaction as it suggested a low heart shot but the doe was down so all good. Except it wasn’t, her neck came up & head was moving then she stood up, I didn’t have a good shot & was contemplating a Texas heart shot just to stop her… then she collapsed again & sat back up. Pinged her with the LRF & took a head/neck shot which connected. When I recovered her the first shot had been a very low chest shot. I was lucky with that one - there was a good hole both sides but not an immediately fatal wound & I could very easily have spent the rest of the day looking for a very mobile doe. Watched the video back & no issue about the X not being in the right place.
The third instance was another fallow doe one evening just after sunset, pinged at 264 yards, magnification up to 28x, ‘X’ just in behind the leg & squeeze. Doe jumped up & ran in a turn towards me up the field, reaction would suggest a heart shot but then she didn’t fall over. Instead she stopped & looked back to where she’d been when I shot her. She turned more quarter on to me so worried she’d run again & clearly wasn’t hit well with the first shot I put another shot into the shoulder & she dropped on the spot. It was dark by the time I’d recovered her but when I did the gralloch there was only one shot in her & that was the second one in the shoulder. My first shot had been a clean miss - but once again watching the video the X was in the right place.
My initial thought was that the ballistic calculator was out so I took some drop readings at various ranges using the LRF & then cross checked against real world data & they were as close as sh1t is to swearing, so it wasn’t that.
Thinking more about each scenario a common factor appeared - using high mag at longer ranges. After an exchange of posts with @mealiejimmy about how the LRF box disappeared as I zoomed I understood more about what was happening & how the display works.
I now limit magnification to 7x & have not had a miss or low shot since.
I’ve also taken to using the LRF to put a second aiming mark up by pinging objects at 200 yards. This gives me flexibility & confidence in taking shots at varying distances without needing to use the LRF first - my Zeiss is zeroed at 200 yards so I instinctively know what’s on & what’s not range wise. But being able to ping after the first shot & quickly get an aiming mark for a second shot is a real bonus.
After the doe season has ended I’m going to do some testing to see if I can get useable ‘tolerance’ with the scope at 14x. But, this will be on paper & not deer!!
Meantime the Alpex will stay on the 6.5 & will be used to help maximise this seasons fallow doe cull.
I’ll probably use the 308 with the Zeiss on it to cull roe does in February, & any fallow that happen to be around at the same time of course. Muntjac will get shot with either combo but within what I now appreciate are the limitations of the Alpex.
Sorry this has been a VERY long post but hope it’s helpful to the OP & to others
Would I buy an Alpex again? - yes.
To answer your original question, I’ve done exactly what you’re enquiring about this doe season. I took a 6-24x56 Diavari off my 6.5 & mounted an Alpex 4K LRF.
Fair to say I’ve now shot a good few deer with this set up & whilst there have been a few deer I’ve shot that I’m 100% certain I wouldn’t have shot with the Diavari it’s not a significant proportion of the total but it has increased my cull figures noticeably. And I have shot deer very late on with the Zeiss this winter too but you are shooting at silhouttes & need to be confident with the angle the deer is stood at, where the aiming area needs to be & where your aiming mark is - the beauty of the Zeiss is the little red dot in the middle
My findings have been that in woodland the image quality due to low light (not using an IR as that’d be illegal for deer) has been so poor that I don’t think there’s any advantage using the Alpex over the Zeiss.
On open ground, such as from a highseat on the edge of a wood looking across fields, there is an advantage & this becomes even greater when it’s a clear night with no cloud cover. I’ve deliberately sat out past the end of the hour after sunset & could readily have shot deer out to 200 yards with the Alpex. Last weekend I shot a fallow at 209 yards 45 mins after sunset & the picture was still in colour as it hadn’t needed to switch to night mode yet due to available light.
I have also shot deer in the morning when I’ve literally been looking at the time in the scope waiting for the hour before sunrise to kick in!
What I have learned is that there are some limitations to the Alpex that put it a long way behind the Zeiss in certain conditions.
Typically with the Zeiss I am happy to shoot until about 40 mins into the last hour & possibly later depending on circumstances - I will mentally reduce my shooting distance as it gets darker as well as dropping out smaller quarry. So, for example, I’m happy to shoot a Muntjac at 200 yards in daylight but as it gets darker I’ll drop that to 100 yards & then not at all - while at the same time I might be happy to shoot a fallow at 100 yards if that all makes sense.
I keep the Zeiss on 8x as that gives a 7mm exit pupil, increasing it to 12x for the muntie at 200 yards or even up to 24x for a fallow at 300 yards, etc.
With the Alpex I have learned the hard way that I can’t adopt the same approach when using it.
In low light I leave it on 3.5x & keep ranges to around 100 yards. The rest of the time I have it on 7x as higher than that I cannot rely 100% on the ‘zero’ due to the way it interpolates the data from the sensor & displays it in the screen.
I’ll be up front & say I have had 3 instances that I would rather not repeat & which have been a very valuable aid in learning how to use the Alpex effectively & humanely. By mentioning them I hope it helps others avoid similar or worse happening - anyone who wants to slag me off or claim I shouldn’t be shooting if I can’t kill them can FRO as my old boss used to say - we can all learn by others mistakes & none of us are too old to learn!
The first incident was one morning when after shooting a pricket on a ride at very dark o’clock using 3.5x I saw a muntie in daylight, pinged it with the LRF & the ballistic calc gave me a distance of 225 yards & a second aiming mark to use. I wound the mag up to 28x, settled the ‘X’ & squeezed. The muntie jumped as expected & shot into cover - great I thought it’ll be dead just inside the wood. Got there & not a sign of it, found the shot site & small amount of cut hair, no skin, no blood, no bone. Fetched the dog from the car, he found the shot site but nothing to follow. Watched the video back & everything as expected. Conclusion was the bullet had gone just under where the cross was showing in the image.
Second instance was a fallow doe one morning after sunrise, pinged with the LRF at 278 yards, wound the mag up to 28x then popped the ‘X’ just up behind the front leg & squeezed. Doe reared up on back legs spun around & charged off down the field with front end dropping & then ploughed into the ground. A little bit surprised at the shot reaction as it suggested a low heart shot but the doe was down so all good. Except it wasn’t, her neck came up & head was moving then she stood up, I didn’t have a good shot & was contemplating a Texas heart shot just to stop her… then she collapsed again & sat back up. Pinged her with the LRF & took a head/neck shot which connected. When I recovered her the first shot had been a very low chest shot. I was lucky with that one - there was a good hole both sides but not an immediately fatal wound & I could very easily have spent the rest of the day looking for a very mobile doe. Watched the video back & no issue about the X not being in the right place.
The third instance was another fallow doe one evening just after sunset, pinged at 264 yards, magnification up to 28x, ‘X’ just in behind the leg & squeeze. Doe jumped up & ran in a turn towards me up the field, reaction would suggest a heart shot but then she didn’t fall over. Instead she stopped & looked back to where she’d been when I shot her. She turned more quarter on to me so worried she’d run again & clearly wasn’t hit well with the first shot I put another shot into the shoulder & she dropped on the spot. It was dark by the time I’d recovered her but when I did the gralloch there was only one shot in her & that was the second one in the shoulder. My first shot had been a clean miss - but once again watching the video the X was in the right place.
My initial thought was that the ballistic calculator was out so I took some drop readings at various ranges using the LRF & then cross checked against real world data & they were as close as sh1t is to swearing, so it wasn’t that.
Thinking more about each scenario a common factor appeared - using high mag at longer ranges. After an exchange of posts with @mealiejimmy about how the LRF box disappeared as I zoomed I understood more about what was happening & how the display works.
I now limit magnification to 7x & have not had a miss or low shot since.
I’ve also taken to using the LRF to put a second aiming mark up by pinging objects at 200 yards. This gives me flexibility & confidence in taking shots at varying distances without needing to use the LRF first - my Zeiss is zeroed at 200 yards so I instinctively know what’s on & what’s not range wise. But being able to ping after the first shot & quickly get an aiming mark for a second shot is a real bonus.
After the doe season has ended I’m going to do some testing to see if I can get useable ‘tolerance’ with the scope at 14x. But, this will be on paper & not deer!!
Meantime the Alpex will stay on the 6.5 & will be used to help maximise this seasons fallow doe cull.
I’ll probably use the 308 with the Zeiss on it to cull roe does in February, & any fallow that happen to be around at the same time of course. Muntjac will get shot with either combo but within what I now appreciate are the limitations of the Alpex.
Sorry this has been a VERY long post but hope it’s helpful to the OP & to others
Would I buy an Alpex again? - yes.
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Another learning for me (to add to @Donkey Basher very honest post) - I have found I need to be more careful with the angle of the deer with the Alpex. The last two I've shot have been quartering more than I thought as I looked through the scope at the time. I don't know if it's that the digital image is somehow "flatter" than decent glass, but both shots have exited further back than expected. Both deer at <200yds and both ran less than 50yds but when watching the playback carefully it is clear that both were more of an angle than I thought at the time.
@Donkey Basher interesting post. Thank you for sharing. I would presume if you have been chatting with Bruce, he will be feeding the info back to HIk.
I don’t think/ hope it will have any affect on me as I don’t shoot out that far and tend to stick to 100 and no more that 150 yards.
It would be interesting to understand how the issue is caused and how it will be resolved as we all want to have faith in the abilities of our scope to work, no matter what zoom we use.
I don’t think/ hope it will have any affect on me as I don’t shoot out that far and tend to stick to 100 and no more that 150 yards.
It would be interesting to understand how the issue is caused and how it will be resolved as we all want to have faith in the abilities of our scope to work, no matter what zoom we use.
I haven't fed back anything to HIK because, unlike Arken/DNT, they don't seem interested
You tell them stuff and either you don't get any reply or else it's very generic with no real interest shown
There are well documented issues with HIK ballistic app - the main one being that it did (maybe it does now) not compensate for the up or down angle between the shooter and the target
Cheers
Bruce
You tell them stuff and either you don't get any reply or else it's very generic with no real interest shown
There are well documented issues with HIK ballistic app - the main one being that it did (maybe it does now) not compensate for the up or down angle between the shooter and the target
Cheers
Bruce
There was an update end of last year that included compensation for angle. Personally I’ve not done the update as the one previous to it caused some issues for people which I wanted to avoid…
From what I can gather, the issues I’m having are a function of the sensitivity of the sensor in the first instance & then the resolution of the display.
I’ve dialled out as much of the mechanical error I can so the scope is centred so I’m not suffering as a result of the image being centred.
My problems seem to stem from the fact I am trying to enlarge a, relatively, small object at a long(ish) distance using only a digital zoom. I think this is only going to get sorted if & when sensor resolution is increased significantly & ditto the resolution of the screen the image gets displayed on.
Until then, & in the meantime until I can gauge the ‘tolerances’ & find a higher magnification that’ll still put a bullet into a 6” circle shot after shot, I’ll be sticking to 7x magnification & not pushing the ranges.
12borejimbo
Well-Known Member
@Donkey Basher thank you for your thorough reply, information and findings.
Is the POI different when using the LRF on higher mag say 14 or 28x?
Hopefully pining the range on lower mag and then winding in if required will solve the issue or just ping at 7x and shoot on the same mag?
Is the POI different when using the LRF on higher mag say 14 or 28x?
Hopefully pining the range on lower mag and then winding in if required will solve the issue or just ping at 7x and shoot on the same mag?
I've been seriously considering getting an alpex for autumn/winter stalking in poor weather when deer rarely come from the treeline. I currently use a delta and a s+b klassic and I am frequently frustrated when I can clearly pick deer up in the thermal but not in the scope as they are either in the tree line or just behind it where it's pitch black! I also considered an add on but I don't believe they will work with the s+b well whatsoever. On my local patch the reds are active in darkness, frequently coming out as last light is already here with technically still half hour if shooting left
Well I’ve been out tonight as these resent post have put dought in my head !!! … so I zeroed my Alpex at 109 yard @18.5 mag and then proceeded to shoot rabbit out at 311yards on 18.5 mag with the ballistic calculator and I can confidently say that this took it clean out . I have no issues with my scope or firmware at all
I am keeping my top optics for the moment. The Norwegian department with responsibility for hunting regulations is in the middle of an enquiry to update legislation. It looks to be on the cards that all thermal and digital/NV /clip ons rifle sights will be outlawed for any quarry except fox and wildboar. Looks like following up wounded game and state culling operations will still be able to use them.
Thermal spotters will not be affected.
As an aside, we don't have legal shooting hours here. We can hunt all night if conditions dictate responsible hunting ie full moon, frost/snow on the ground. No lamping or NV has been allowed. Thermal and digital day/ night scopes have snuck in as a grey area which the responsible department hopes to address.
I expect that there will be many people that will be disappointed to find out the expensive equipment they have bought is now illegal to use.
On a personal note, like most modern technology, a new model is rapidly outdated. A £5000 thermal with a 3 yr garantee. I would sooner pay £2000 for a top quality optical scope that will still be working in 20 yrs time, if looked after.
Another digression is that we don't have anything like the deer numbers here and the seasons are short, often only 3-4 mnths.
Thermal spotters will not be affected.
As an aside, we don't have legal shooting hours here. We can hunt all night if conditions dictate responsible hunting ie full moon, frost/snow on the ground. No lamping or NV has been allowed. Thermal and digital day/ night scopes have snuck in as a grey area which the responsible department hopes to address.
I expect that there will be many people that will be disappointed to find out the expensive equipment they have bought is now illegal to use.
On a personal note, like most modern technology, a new model is rapidly outdated. A £5000 thermal with a 3 yr garantee. I would sooner pay £2000 for a top quality optical scope that will still be working in 20 yrs time, if looked after.
Another digression is that we don't have anything like the deer numbers here and the seasons are short, often only 3-4 mnths.
Steff
Well-Known Member
A development I fully support. You didn‘t mention your own opinion on it, so I hope I‘m not offending you.
I managed to get a roe doe on a snowy fell early this morning. Daylight was only just creeping in and mist was hovering over the ground. The tricky part was making sure it wasn‘t a buck. Taking the shot with an old Zeiss Diavari-C 3-9x36 was not a challenge.
This is the sort of hunting I appreciate. Not culling for numbers of course.
A similar thing has happened to me twice with my non LRF Alpex 4k - shot looked spot on on video replay but resulted in a miss. Now...without video replay you would never know.I’m not as subtle as @Klenchblaize - I’ll give you £150 for the 6-24x56 Diavari
To answer your original question, I’ve done exactly what you’re enquiring about this doe season. I took a 6-24x56 Diavari off my 6.5 & mounted an Alpex 4K LRF.
Fair to say I’ve now shot a good few deer with this set up & whilst there have been a few deer I’ve shot that I’m 100% certain I wouldn’t have shot with the Diavari it’s not a significant proportion of the total but it has increased my cull figures noticeably. And I have shot deer very late on with the Zeiss this winter too but you are shooting at silhouttes & need to be confident with the angle the deer is stood at, where the aiming area needs to be & where your aiming mark is - the beauty of the Zeiss is the little red dot in the middle
My findings have been that in woodland the image quality due to low light (not using an IR as that’d be illegal for deer) has been so poor that I don’t think there’s any advantage using the Alpex over the Zeiss.
On open ground, such as from a highseat on the edge of a wood looking across fields, there is an advantage & this becomes even greater when it’s a clear night with no cloud cover. I’ve deliberately sat out past the end of the hour after sunset & could readily have shot deer out to 200 yards with the Alpex. Last weekend I shot a fallow at 209 yards 45 mins after sunset & the picture was still in colour as it hadn’t needed to switch to night mode yet due to available light.
I have also shot deer in the morning when I’ve literally been looking at the time in the scope waiting for the hour before sunrise to kick in!
What I have learned is that there are some limitations to the Alpex that put it a long way behind the Zeiss in certain conditions.
Typically with the Zeiss I am happy to shoot until about 40 mins into the last hour & possibly later depending on circumstances - I will mentally reduce my shooting distance as it gets darker as well as dropping out smaller quarry. So, for example, I’m happy to shoot a Muntjac at 200 yards in daylight but as it gets darker I’ll drop that to 100 yards & then not at all - while at the same time I might be happy to shoot a fallow at 100 yards if that all makes sense.
I keep the Zeiss on 8x as that gives a 7mm exit pupil, increasing it to 12x for the muntie at 200 yards or even up to 24x for a fallow at 300 yards, etc.
With the Alpex I have learned the hard way that I can’t adopt the same approach when using it.
In low light I leave it on 3.5x & keep ranges to around 100 yards. The rest of the time I have it on 7x as higher than that I cannot rely 100% on the ‘zero’ due to the way it interpolates the data from the sensor & displays it in the screen.
I’ll be up front & say I have had 3 instances that I would rather not repeat & which have been a very valuable aid in learning how to use the Alpex effectively & humanely. By mentioning them I hope it helps others avoid similar or worse happening - anyone who wants to slag me off or claim I shouldn’t be shooting if I can’t kill them can FRO as my old boss used to say - we can all learn by others mistakes & none of us are too old to learn!
The first incident was one morning when after shooting a pricket on a ride at very dark o’clock using 3.5x I saw a muntie in daylight, pinged it with the LRF & the ballistic calc gave me a distance of 225 yards & a second aiming mark to use. I wound the mag up to 28x, settled the ‘X’ & squeezed. The muntie jumped as expected & shot into cover - great I thought it’ll be dead just inside the wood. Got there & not a sign of it, found the shot site & small amount of cut hair, no skin, no blood, no bone. Fetched the dog from the car, he found the shot site but nothing to follow. Watched the video back & everything as expected. Conclusion was the bullet had gone just under where the cross was showing in the image.
Second instance was a fallow doe one morning after sunrise, pinged with the LRF at 278 yards, wound the mag up to 28x then popped the ‘X’ just up behind the front leg & squeezed. Doe reared up on back legs spun around & charged off down the field with front end dropping & then ploughed into the ground. A little bit surprised at the shot reaction as it suggested a low heart shot but the doe was down so all good. Except it wasn’t, her neck came up & head was moving then she stood up, I didn’t have a good shot & was contemplating a Texas heart shot just to stop her… then she collapsed again & sat back up. Pinged her with the LRF & took a head/neck shot which connected. When I recovered her the first shot had been a very low chest shot. I was lucky with that one - there was a good hole both sides but not an immediately fatal wound & I could very easily have spent the rest of the day looking for a very mobile doe. Watched the video back & no issue about the X not being in the right place.
The third instance was another fallow doe one evening just after sunset, pinged at 264 yards, magnification up to 28x, ‘X’ just in behind the leg & squeeze. Doe jumped up & ran in a turn towards me up the field, reaction would suggest a heart shot but then she didn’t fall over. Instead she stopped & looked back to where she’d been when I shot her. She turned more quarter on to me so worried she’d run again & clearly wasn’t hit well with the first shot I put another shot into the shoulder & she dropped on the spot. It was dark by the time I’d recovered her but when I did the gralloch there was only one shot in her & that was the second one in the shoulder. My first shot had been a clean miss - but once again watching the video the X was in the right place.
My initial thought was that the ballistic calculator was out so I took some drop readings at various ranges using the LRF & then cross checked against real world data & they were as close as sh1t is to swearing, so it wasn’t that.
Thinking more about each scenario a common factor appeared - using high mag at longer ranges. After an exchange of posts with @mealiejimmy about how the LRF box disappeared as I zoomed I understood more about what was happening & how the display works.
I now limit magnification to 7x & have not had a miss or low shot since.
I’ve also taken to using the LRF to put a second aiming mark up by pinging objects at 200 yards. This gives me flexibility & confidence in taking shots at varying distances without needing to use the LRF first - my Zeiss is zeroed at 200 yards so I instinctively know what’s on & what’s not range wise. But being able to ping after the first shot & quickly get an aiming mark for a second shot is a real bonus.
After the doe season has ended I’m going to do some testing to see if I can get useable ‘tolerance’ with the scope at 14x. But, this will be on paper & not deer!!
Meantime the Alpex will stay on the 6.5 & will be used to help maximise this seasons fallow doe cull.
I’ll probably use the 308 with the Zeiss on it to cull roe does in February, & any fallow that happen to be around at the same time of course. Muntjac will get shot with either combo but within what I now appreciate are the limitations of the Alpex.
Sorry this has been a VERY long post but hope it’s helpful to the OP & to others
Would I buy an Alpex again? - yes.
There is never the option to scrutinise a shot (post-shot) with a glass scope and we've all had 'misses' that we thought were hits with glass scopes, so comparison on that count isn't fair.
All in all though, the Alpex 4k certainly has some advantages over glass, even the best glass.
nun_hunter
Well-Known Member
The Delta performs pretty well in low light but like you I can see deer in the thermal and make out shapes in the scope but not safe to shoot. The Sytong works very well with the Delta and produces a clear image to carry on shooting if needed.
This is one advantage, that you can play the shot back and analyse the situation.
Indeed it is, in fact it is usually the first thing that I do before going over to the carcass or following up a deer that has ran into cover. By looking at the shot placement on the video replay before you follow up gives you a head-start on what to expect to find. A big smile on the face when bullet placement is as expected and you can walk up to it in high spirits - especially if a really nice buck.
My opinion is that in a situation where you need to reduce the population and meeting cull targets is critical, then fair play. Use the legal tools available to you. Whether that is digital day night scopes/ NV or thermal or conventional optics so be it.
Recreational stalking, again, as long as it's legal who's business is it?
Myself and my situation, not really an option atm. I don't hunt enough to justify upgrading to digital/ thermal sight, especially with the probable impeding ban looming. I would probably be able to have use for a thermal spotter but have not splashed out yet.
We will see......
Steff
Well-Known Member
I see what you mean. Concerning Norway this may indeed be a valid approach. In Germany however hunting areas range in size berween 75 and approx. 2000 ha maximum. On average I would say they are 300 ha. In other words, your neighbour is never far away and what he does usually has a direct effect on your own hunting.
If everyone around you scares the **** out of deer by shooting them even in the darkest of night, this also becomes very evident on your own ground. The fact that this is illegal doesn‘t help, I‘m afraid. The damage is done.
Stalkers in Germany have unfortunately abused their privilege to use thermals/NV on wild boar to a degree that daylight stalking is becoming a rarity.
The worst is, that people don‘t wise up. The first thing new stalkers do is to buy a thermal add-on. This is going completely in the wrong direction, all over.
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