Red headlamp for walking in, in the dark?

[steeliedrew]

I have a clear cut I like to hunt and it's highly beneficial to walk in an hour before first light. sometimes deer bed over night in the cut. my question is, will using a red head lamp screw my chances of getting in mostly undetected? It's just too easy to snap twigs when you can't see anything. addicted2hunting found that out today when he was walking into his spot. He snapped a twig and he had two deer snort wheezing at him. he grunted at them and one circled down wind of him to try and figure out what he was. 

I'm going back in there soon and I'm thinking I could get to the ambush spot pretty easily with a red headlamp. Anyone have success with that?

[h20hunter]

Tagging this one.

[_TONY_]

Never liked walking with the red light setting on my head lamps... I've just used my regular head lamp and tried to get setup an soon as possible.

[Heredoggydoggy]

According to articles I've read on animal vision, colored lenses on a light only reduces the intensity of the light.  They can still see it.  Another article was about some hunters that found that red or green light was making videotaping night hunts hard, so they went to white lights and saw NO DIFFERENCE in the behavior of the animals.  My personal experience with lights is limited, but in general, I've found that lights arouse an animal's curiosity and attract them, if anything. 

[steeliedrew]

oh hey Tony, didn't know you were on this forum. I don't really have a problem seeing with the red light setting but I'm just trying to figure out if the deer can actually pick up on what's going on? Can they see the red light? I'm not so worried about the deer that may already be bedded in the cut that I may jump.  My main concern is deer that may already be making their way towards my spot and could choose to go elsewhere if they saw something.

[MLHSN]

Could get an army surplus gortex bivy bag off of ebay for $20.  with a cold weather bag go in before dark the night before and crash.  You could be sitting right there come morning...

My experience walking in the dark is that I have to go at least 30 min. with complete darkness for my eyes to adjust.   If you get out of your truck and expect your eyes to adjust completely after 5 minutes, it's not going to work.  Have you ever slept under the stars in the backcountry? Ever notice how you fall asleep and can't see past your flashlight beam but wake up in the middle of the night and can see pretty well?  Your eyes do adjust quite a bit in the first 5 min. but I think it takes 30-60 min. to get fine-tuned.  Just my  , YMMV.  In the Army I always had to use red light.  A human can see red light quite a bit less far away then white.  I spent a lot of time looking at maps with my hands shielding a red light.  Not so much fun, especially if you write on your map with colored  alcohol markers.

[JimmyHoffa]

Red is better in terms of counter detection.  Red has higher frequency/shorter wavelength, it will attenuate faster. 

[_TONY_]

oh hey Tony, didn't know you were on this forum. I don't really have a problem seeing with the red light setting but I'm just trying to figure out if the deer can actually pick up on what's going on? Can they see the red light? I'm not so worried about the deer that may already be bedded in the cut that I may jump.  My main concern is deer that may already be making their way towards my spot and could choose to go elsewhere if they saw something.

Hey, man... If you do quik scans with your lamp as you're walking in and you happen to be un lucky and light something up just kill your lamp, sit down, and listen... Most times they won't know what to think and just keep coming in.

[crazysccrmd]

To a deer any source of light when it's dark will attract attention. Try using red chem lights with most of it taped over. Tie/zip tie it on top of your boots with the overhanging sides having exposed light on the bottom. This will give you enough light to see where your foot is coming down as long as you're moving slowly but not broadcast it everywhere you move your head like a headlamp would.

[Heredoggydoggy]

I just got a blue lens cover for my flashlight.  2 reasons:  1, I'm told that blue is good for following a blood trail in the dark.  2, Back in 1966 there was an espionage TV show called "Blue Light", the reason being that a blue light beam couldn't be seen from the side, and was used by spies for that reason.  (My devious mind liked that!  )

[MadHatter]

I use red because it preserves my night vision, so if I turn on my lamp I can still see in the dark. 5 years of working on ships gets you pretty used to doing things in different colored lights... Used red on the bridge, blue below deck and green on the mess deck... You should see scrambled eggs under green light... Looks nasty...

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 2

[crazysccrmd]

You should see scrambled eggs under green light... Looks nasty...

The light doesn't matter - military eggs even look gross in the dark

[deaner]

not hard to find headlamps that offer red green and white light.  and yeah, the red or green will not damage your night vision as much as a bright white. also it will draw less attention from road hunters that might be driving by where youre hiking in to hunt.   better safe than sorry i say, go for the dim colored lights

[MIKEXRAY]

My red light setting is not bright enough to walk in.  I use the half setting white ,  I don't scan around but keep looking down and walking to my stand.  I get there quicker instead of taking time / trying to be quiet. I also get there an hour early and I think an hour of quiet time is plenty for them to quiet down. I also think it depends on where you hunt. Where I hunt there are tons of hikers / campers and the deer & elk seem more acceptable to seeing people moving around. If I was hunting a deserted farm / private property no one visits, I would be a lot more careful as someone walking around would be much more foreign to the animals. Mike

[colockumelk]

Here is what Amy Aviation says about seeing in the dark. 
DARK ADAPTATION: The process by which the eyes become more sensitive to low levels of light. 

Basically you have three types of vision. Photopic, Mesopic, and Scotopic.  Photopic is what you use during the day.  It uses cones to see color.  Mesopic is like during the dawn dusk or full moon and uses cones and rods to see.  Scotopic is during the night and uses rods which produce rhodpsin to see.  During the day or with bright lights your rods don't work because the light bleaches out the rhodpsin. 

So this is how the dark adaptation process works.  You jump out of your truck at 5 AM on a moonless night.  Since you have been starring at your headlights and the dome light while getting ready as soon as you step into the dark you are blind.  Because your rhodpsin is bleached out and innoperable and your cones only see color.  Now since its dark out the rhodopsin slowely starts to come back in which is why you can slowely start to see better. 

The Dark Adaptation process takes 30-45 minutes before you become fully desensitized to light.  That being said using a red lense light is still going to take 30-45 minutes to fully become dark adapted.  Where the benefits of a red lenses comes in is this.  If you are fully de-sensitized and you turn on a bright white light it will take you up to 30 minutes to re-dark adapt.  But a red lenses light will only require up to 5 minutes. 

In short your initial walk in you won't really gain much in the amount of time it takes to get dark adapted.  But once you are dark adapted a red lense light requires a much shorter time than a white one to re-dark adapt. 

Now as far as walking out in the dark after sitting all day.  If you are exposed to sunlight for 2-5 hours your rhodopsin will be so bleached out that it will take up to 5 hours to reach your max level of dark adaptation.  Wearing sunglasses can prevent your rods from getting super bleached out.