JAKKALS JAG EN NAGSIG This subject is often discussed, and recently I was asked to do a basic article for the new to nagsig jagter so here is what I can do. Reading a few links it is very evident that most jackal hunters have no idea what NV is all about and the only thing commonly known is rooi ligte, don t mean to sound arrogant but Rooi Ligte is ou dooooos, to 90% of jackal it only makes them more educated and light shy. You cannot compare hunting with NV and hunting with red lights, they cannot be judged in the same light excuse the pun! You will kill far more predators using a good NV set up. And nobody will know you are around either! I travel from place to place on a farm road at night, spot to spot with no lights mostly, I use a Garmin E Trex and it shows 100% accurately the road I drove and I drive back the same way I came in over my tyre marks, it is dead accurate! This is the first thing I want to divulge here. http://www.africanpredator.com/jakkals%20jag%20wenk.pdf Ok, night vision, I read some people seem to think 1 st generation is junk and a waste of time to hunt jackal, these people are simply ignorant as to the world of NV and what can be done to enhance basic equipment so that its equal to 2 nd generation and more, but at 90% cheaper the price of the more expensive and often overrated 2 nd gen stuff. I will take you over a few simple things here and you will see that 1 st generation is by no means junk as many do think it is.
To start let me say that I have hunted a long time now, and tried all the things and gimmicks etc, and NOTHUNG can compare to a good night vision set up, the animals come closer, come faster to a call, are unaware of you if wind is correct, you are part of the darkness, and nothing knows about you, humans included, you don t educate animals with lights even red ones and to be on equal ground with them is a HUGE plus! And also, you can watch an animal s body language from far away, and know how he is reacting to your calling and if others are also in the close vicinity. All these factors mentioned you cannot do with red lights! A SIMPLE CHOICE If you want to go a cheap way not spend huge amounts of cash but want to use NV equipment at night and at least see well I will tell you what to buy, and with whom, then you can buy knowing you will be happy and that you wont buy it, go hunt and see you cant see shit! Look at this article for the names etc with contact details. So, here is an example of one system I use, the one system I employ is a Cobra 1 st generation METEOR binoculars, on it s own I can see without moon light max 60m but not clearly and no good to call jackal, its useless, BUT this is ok, so read on! We must remember the moon gives you natural light to enhance the image you get when looking through a NV binoculars, if you hunt on no moon you need to employ extra light to help you see better, also we must remember a MONOCULAR is a NO NO when we hunt it is a huge strain on your eyes, you will get moersa headaches and its unhealthy! Use a binocular and have zero strain on one eye, I put eye drops in my eyes before I start a calling stand and it gives me clearer vision. Also a quick tip, at night if you look at an object, and try identify it, NEVER look directly at the object, rather look just to the side of it, not at it, you will see the object far clearer that way. The Binoculars I use I have taken a piece of insulation tape and set the left and right optical focus, then have applied it so it cannot go out of focus, it helps a lot just another small tip.
GENERAL ON HOW TO MAKE YOU SEE BETTER For typical 1 st generation NV we need to somehow enhance it so that the vision becomes far better and clearer than what it was before, for this I use a simple infra red long range illuminator, it is a designated IR LASER, now please take note, this is NOT a normal red laser that costs you about R35,00 at a local craft shop, it is a proper INFRA RED laser, the normal open naked eye cannot see its beam, the beam of light ONLY can be seen through your NV binoculars. What happens is this; you switch on your NV binoculars and you can see with no moon 40-60m max, NOW switch on the infra red laser, and a long beam of white light is pushed out very very far on its smallest setting, the laser can be turned up so that it shows a huge circle of white light close range and the narrower it gets turned down the brighter the image and the clearer you can see at long distance, in other words, when an object is close by you make the circle that s is projected you make it bigger but far animals, if you want to identify them you turn the circle of light narrower on the laser and it throws a smaller beam of white light towards the animal and at over 200m with a 1 st generation binoculars you can identify an animal easily. Very bright image Yellow is laser and the cone is the circle it throws this white light I speak of ONLY is seen when you look through the night vision binoculars, it cannot be seen by anybody else to witness it is amazing, I can see a jackals black saddle on it s back at over 250m at night easily! So much for the people saying 1 st generation NV sucks. The laser I am speaking about has recently come down in price, it can be bought from Richard Sanders the technical name is a long range laser illuminator. Have a look at my website here, my site offers the most information on jackal control in SA, no other site will compare to mine, here is an idea of the devise; http://www.africanpredator.com/art_night_vision_latest.html
Here you can see the IR illuminator; the unit takes a dumpy 123 battery. The binoculars is a Cobra Meteor. I have used this unit for a few years now, and so far it has given me zero problems, the last price I had was R5900-00 but as I said I am aware prices have come down, call Richard he is in SA and can give you the price, he can also demo the unit if he is close by and then you can see what you are buying before paying! This is a start to help you utilise a 1 st generation unit so that its good for hunting and to see objects at long range, however now you have another problem.. But as per normal we can sort out problems with a little help of artificial light, just like we need artificial light more so when we have no moon above us. Remember cat hunting is a NO MOON event, we cannot hunt cats on a moon so again we have a problem, and even with a full moon above us we still will want to see better, and as good as we can get!
PROBLEM SOLVER; Ok, now we have an amazing bright illuminator on our NIGHT VISION BINOS, we now have a problem, and this is that the batteries namely the 123 s are small, dumpy and MOERSA DUUR! Here is a secret I do BUT before I reveal this, firstly we need to look at another option. When I go away camping and hunting I travel as light as I can, so I also take a small lighter swivel chair with me, and on the chair is my infra red spotlight, it has an Infra red lens on the chair and runs from a second 12V from the bakkie. SEE BELOW;
As a problem solver and yet another method to BOOST the night vision ability it to use a LARGE powerful spotlight and an infra red lens, I get my lenses from here, I don t support SA at all if I can as 99% of the places are rip offs and we are paying a lot more than we should for most things, here is my lens; http://www.africanpredator.com/art_infra-red-lens.html This lens will cost you thousands in SA, from England only 20 pounds. I now build it on one of the lights we sell and fit a funnel on it to throw the invisible light forward, for that I use a pot plant holder, nothing special at all. Note the funnel
This large 1,5 million candle power light runs off the 12V battery, and allows me to see extremely well at a far very far distance, and if an animal needs identification I switch on the Illuminator. BUT NOW, getting back to the battery 123 issue and being heavy and pricey. Well; When I am hunting 99% of the time run the binoculars with the large IR spotlight, I don t use my illuminator much at all. BUT the binoculars also takes another 123 battery, so I have come up with a way that allows me to hunt a lot of nights on the one single 123 battery before its flat, and I get maximum use from a single 123 battery. Here is how I work it; I switch on my large IR spotlight and switch on my binoculars, and after 1 second I again switch it off again, then looking through the binoculars it keeps its power a long time and a lot of light is still kept in the system while I scan and gooi the bigger IR spotlight on and off, I can scan about 3 minutes before I again need a little power from my binos to see well, the binoculars then bleed off the power of the big spotlight and it saves me a lot of small 123 battery power. As example, I bought a battery 3 hunts back, when it was new it was metered at 3, 11 and now after 3 hunts, and a total of about 9 hours hunting it is reading at 3, 09 It has not dropped its power by much at all, BUT and I say again BUT, if I was using it all the time on the binoculars as a constant illuminator it would last one hour maximum!!! These are just tips I can give you as they work for me. I am often knocked by some other jackal hunters who like to take digs at our site and spit out garbage as to us and who we are, and these people have never met us and just because of jealousy try discredit us, also a main reason why they do this is because we reveal so much info, and they don t like it, and this article is just yet another one for them to take digs at..
So, this is a very good tip, use a large spotlight on the chair, run a 12V battery for that and scan with your binoculars, and switch on and off and scan for a few minutes, then a small 123 battery will last hours, if you did not and used it often it would not make an hour! En hulle is duur o boet! BINOCULARS It is important to remember that the laser illuminator must match the binoculars and be able to screw on it, I suggest without a doubt grab a LUNA PB5 binocular with a laser, will cost around R18, 000 or less and you will be happy. They fit each other, the laser screws on the top of the binoculars. Turn head to make the image clearer at longer range. This is a PB5 and the infra red laser; see this page for more info, I can without a doubt say this set is an ideal combo for the general jackal hunter. I fully recommend this. Call Richard and ask him, remember never buy NV blind, because you can t take it back if you are not happy, Richard can at his convenience demo what he has and you can see exactly what you are buying, and this is great. Call him and ask him he is more than qualified to assist you. http://www.africanpredator.com/2010_ln_prices_ra.xls
FINAL TIP I use an extra Sure-fire torch on my binoculars with the laser and use a tactical infra red bulb in it. The bulb is bought here www.tactical4u.com speak to Chris, it looks like a normal white light torch bulb BUT IT IS NOT, look carefully. I mount this on top of my binoculars next to the long range illuminator, and with this set up at night if you stand 250m away from me, and hold up a packet of chips in one hand and a coke in the other I will tell you what is in what hand! This is how good my night vision set up is, and this is 1 st generation, a unit some say is crap! On the left is the tactical infra red bulb, the right is the normal Sure-Fire bulb.
The infra red bulb is on right it has 3 small squares; the normal bulb is on the left side. These are tactical infra red bulbs used in military equipment. Extra IR bulb in Sure-fire torch. Long range illuminator
I use a pressure switch also bought at www.tactical4u.com it is easier to turn on and off. This system is fantastic, it is awesome, and with the big infra red spotlight it allows me to see like daylight as far as 250m. Then if longer range is required I can use the laser! Far too much down talk is spoken about how bad 1 st generation is, if those antis would have to see what this can do they would be buying a unit tomorrow to achieve what I get from this.
For all night vision enquiries contact Richard Sanders at; ricsan@vodamail.co.za 082-312 - 0035 I offer as much info as possible to help those people who want to learn, I hope these articles and others on this page regarding NIGHT VISION will help you. LOTS OF INFORMATION HERE ABOUT NIGHT VISION! http://www.africanpredator.com/predatorcallinginfo.html