A few years back, I wrote about LPVO’s and why I was switching to them on my mid-range guns. Lower base magnification was what I was chasing, and still am. While that fact hasn’t changed, I wanted to offer an addendum to that post.
Now that the border has opened back up, and the fake flu is gone, I’ve booked some trips to Canada to hunt bear over bait. While I’m still shooting lever guns for most of my bear hunting, when it comes to sitting over bait, I prefer a variable optic vs a red dot. While in New Brunswick last spring, I realized something:
Though I was right, that LPVO’s are the best option for this kind of hunting, I forgot to take into consideration WHERE I’d be hunting.
You see, bears don’t often cruise the open landscape…and if they do…it’s usually a fair distance from where humans like to travel. If you’ve ever hunted bear over bait, then you know what I’m talking about. Bait sites are usually set up in places that bears can creep in and out of and disappear into the shadows…the edges of swamps, blow downs, thick conifer cover, creek, and river bottoms…places where sun light has a hard time penetrating the forest canopy.
So, what’s the issue with that? Well, bears are notorious for hitting these bait sites much closer to the end of legal shooting light, than mid-day. Therefore, while LPVO’s are king in this shorter range scenario (50-150 yards), where you don’t need the Hubble telescope to take a 100 yard shot, they lack one thing, and that’s light gathering capabilities.
The majority of LPVO’s (think 1-6 power) are going to have a 24mm objective lens. A higher powered, variable optic scope (say a 4-24x) is going to have an objective lens that’s more than double that. This means more light transmission, ESPECIALLY during those critical minutes, just before last legal shooting light.
Black bears are hard enough to judge, and shoot, as is, if you’re not using an illuminated reticle (black reticle on a black target, duh), now factor in minimal light transmission, and you’ve set yourself up for failure…or…having to check out of the hunt 15 minutes early, because you can’t distinguish what’s at the bait bucket.
After not having hunted over bait for a while, and having this exact issue happen to me last season in New Brunswick, I figured I needed to do some thinking. I came across, what I’m hoping will be the answer, in the Hawke Sport Optics Endurance line, with their 2.5 – 10x scope. While I won’t be using the top end zoom much, I am happy I didn’t have to jump up to a 4x base magnification, to get a 57mm objective lens, which is HUGE in comparison to most LPVO’s.
So, while I won’t admit to being wrong, I will admit to realizing there’s always room for improvement and advancement. I’m curious to see how this 2.5x base magnification will work, and if I’ll stick with it for bait sitting, but I have high hopes!
Black Dirt Diaries 