Night hunting and sleep - what is your system?

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dave3006

Active member
When you night hunt, how do you plan your sleep?

I have a 2 hour drive to my locations. So, I have two options:

1. Arrive right as it is getting dark. Hunt until midnight. Then, drive home extremely tired. This is somewhat dangerous.

2. Try to go to bed at 6:00pm ish, wake up at midnight, drive, then hunt from 2:00am until sunrise. This is a little safer. But, it’s hard to get to sleep early. Especially, when you are kind of excited about the hunt.

Any advise?
 
When I night hunted, I also had at least 45 min drive to and from, not counting while hunting. My remedy was to have a partner that always insisted on driving. That way I could sleep on the drive home and nap when stands were slow. If he fell asleep at the wheel, I'd never know as I was already out cold.
Must have worked great as I'm still alive and he has since passed on.
 
i hunt night, get home around 3 am or later, sleep a few hours and get up around 7am or so. then try for a nap if i know we are going again the next night.

its not so bad in the spring, summer and fall when the walking is easier. its the harsh winter conditions that really get to a person.
 
Get some roosters, mine start crowing around 1am during full moons, especially when its bright and snowy. Take the week off, sleep in, drink coffee, winter is a slow time around here anyways, I check the moon calendar before hand and plan days off during the full moon so i can hunt and sleep. Winter full moons I dont sleep well anyways, whether im out hunting or not.

Later hunts, or earlier hunts in the morning depending on how you look at it are always best for me. Sun down around here in winter is around 5pm, people are out, thats too early to hunt and the moon isnt high enough to be bright. I normally pull all nighter type hunts but I think you would be better off trying to sleep early and wake up early when everyone else is asleep to hunt.
 
Interesting post. I don't travel too far, most of my spots are less than a 10 minute drive in the sxs. When daylight savings time ends in November, I can sometimes get 2 or 3 stands in before the wife has supper ready. Actually this is the main reason I started night hunting, the flat farming ground close to home is not very productive during the day but can really produce at night. And I try to stretch it out, if I get 1 or 2 I'm good with it and save some spots for next time.

A few other spots are about a 1/2 hour drive, those I usually leave about sunset and like to be home by midnight. I'm definitely not an all nighter lol. I have a pretty good spot I can go that's about 2 hours but I just don't like going that far to hunt. I will say I do need to expand my properties some, but I'm more focused on what's right around home.
 
I gotta say, night hunting is contradictory to the rest of my life. I've always been an early to rise, first to work, hit the ground running type.
Similar to Russ everything I night hunt is within 20 or 30 minutes of home with most of it 10 to 15. If I can be home by 1 or 2 a.m. I'm good. When hunting with my son, he is mostly limited to weekends and we may be out until 4 or 5 a.m. Those nights really wipe me out for the next day. Not much gets accomplished the day after a late hunt. I've tried napping the day before with limited success. A thermos of coffee and a candy bar, or P and J sandwich, will get me an extra stand or two if I'm starting to fade.
A 2 hour drive after hunting would be really tough.
 
I woke up this morning at 12:00am. I was at my spot at 2:30am. I started my drive home at 7:00am.

I was pretty tired. I had to stop and sleep in my car for an hour.

Called in one coyote. But, I didn’t get a shot. I had no idea how tough range estimation is at night with thermal.

With thermal, do you guys like no moon or full moon?
 
As to you last question, moon dark makes stand selection easier as cover is not as important as in the bright though I try to use cover if available even in dark moon.
As 204 and flint, most of my places are within 35min of home so I can't help ya but I think for safety I would be there at dusk and drive home before I was 'wiped out'. I have had good action here in PA in all months (except when gobbler and archery seasons are in) at all hours of the night.
Used to regularly do all nighters but haven't in a few years except when Mick and I were hunting Illinois. 3am is about as late as I am out anymore cause I am old :ROFLMAO:
 
jmeddy said:
As to you last question, moon dark makes stand selection easier as cover is not as important as in the bright though I try to use cover if available even in dark moon.
As 204 and flint, most of my places are within 35min of home so I can't help ya but I think for safety I would be there at dusk and drive home before I was 'wiped out'. I have had good action here in PA in all months (except when gobbler and archery seasons are in) at all hours of the night.
Used to regularly do all nighters but haven't in a few years except when Mick and I were hunting Illinois. 3am is about as late as I am out anymore cause I am old :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
You’re not old ! You’re seasoned 😃 !
 
dave3006 said:
I woke up this morning at 12:00am. I was at my spot at 2:30am. I started my drive home at 7:00am.

I was pretty tired. I had to stop and sleep in my car for an hour.

Called in one coyote. But, I didn’t get a shot. I had no idea how tough range estimation is at night with thermal.

With thermal, do you guys like no moon or full moon?
Click to expand...
Dark nights ( new moon ) ! Sleep whenever you can ! I worked 3rd shift many years, I can sleep most anytime. You will find some periods during the night can produce better than others during the year in my opinion. Early evening, after midnight or maybe wee hours of the morning !

Roll your window down or pull over & nap 😴 !

I now have a Pulsar scanner with range finder. That really helps ! Happy hunting !
 
dave3006 said:
Called in one coyote. But, I didn’t get a shot. I had no idea how tough range estimation is at night with thermal.
Click to expand...
Some reticles can be used as a rudimentary range finder with practice using the dimensions of an average sized coyote as a baseline. Pulsar has a couple. I think other manufacturers give you the size of their reticles which could be extrapolated (big word for an old guy), but you would need to be sure and be on the same 'power' when using them as such.
The correct caliber/bullet/200yd zero can carry you from 0 to about 225-250 with a center of mass hold.
 
Wintertime get lots of Sleep...LOL , because it dark early at 17:00. Go out, pop a dog, then easy be back in the house by 22: or 23:00
Summer months is when get little sleep, as it not even getting dark till 21:00 . So being out till 03 or 04:00 pretty common, then your only getting couple Hr. sleep.
.
 
No way I could still hunt the same way I did when I was younger, I'd need a month to recover. We usually scheduled our hunts around dark moon weekends. So once a month from Oct - Feb., we’d take off Friday after work, sometimes driving 5hr or further. Depending how far we went, we’d start hunting about midnight and as long as the hunting was decent we’d keep at it until morning. If it was slow we'd sleep. When the hunting is good, seeing lots of eyes, it was easy to stay awake. String together 5-6 empty stands would get your eyelids flapping. When the hunting was decent we’d usually crash out about 10-11am or so for a few hrs and start back up in the afternoon. The drive home on Sunday included lot's of coffee.
 
jmeddy said:
Some reticles can be used as a rudimentary range finder with practice using the dimensions of an average sized coyote as a baseline.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I did not know that. The reticles sizes are listed in the manual.

I zero'd my Clarion 640 with reticle number 2 on designation A1 at 50 yards. If I change to reticle number 9 and stay on setting A1, is it still zero'd at 50 yards?

The clarion has a reticle with a 44 MOA circle. Since the average coyote is about that length, as long as the circle is not bigger than the coyotes length, he should be within 100 yards.
 
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The problem with using body length IMO is angles. You might think it is broadside BUT!?? If possible find a ret that equates to 8-9” up/down (ave size for our Northeast coyotes anyhow) and bracket the chest
 
When the coyote market was good I’d go till my body would just quit on me. I’d hunt all night get home at 6:30 wake my kids up get them ready for school and go to work. I’d sleep for a few hours after work and during my lunch break. It was rough and stopped being fun. Now I tell myself if those guys can sit in the bar till 1:00 I can call coyotes till 1:00 and still function at work.
 
When I got my first AGM Rattler (V1) the reticles were not 'synced' (missed some hogs when I changed reticle) but a SW update solved the problem. I use the small cross X on the reticle to estimate distance but distance is generally less than 100 yds. My loads are pretty flat shooting 50 to 150 yds. This ol guy doesn't stay out past 11PM.
 
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