One of my younger brothers(10yrs. my jr.) has come here to shotgun and bp deer hunt for the last 14yrs. He hunts extremely hard, has sit in pouring rain, cold sleeting or snowing weather for days on end from daylight to dark. He has shot his share of deer and a few decent bucks but just cannot get into that trophy, wall hanger range.
Will get back to brother in a sec....
About 9-10yrs ago, my eye's really went south quickly. Long range objects started getting a bit blurry and dusk , dawn vision got really bad so I went to the Dr. and he put me in glasses. Problem with the daytime blurriness was solved. Not so much with the dawn, dusk issue's.
Could see deer silhouettes fine, just couldn't see my site's clear enough for a clean kill shot. I finally inst'd scopes. on the bp inline's and hi viz rifle site's on the Rem1100.
That worked for me at the expense of a lot of ribbing from my brothers. I'd hear things like " hey, you want one of us to go to your stand with ya this evening and shoot that big monster since you can't see him" or " we can go with ya and hold a flashlight over your shoulder so you can see your sites
Okay, back to the one brother I started talking about that has never shot a trophy.
He hunts with a stock sited Rem. 1100 identical to mine. About 5-6yrs ago, he went out before daylight and posted up about 40yds. from a big ravine where we knew deer were crossing. Right at daylight he heard a deer coming up out of the ravine. As the deer crested the top of the ravine, brother could see the silhouette of this deer with a massive white rack. He shouldered his shotgun and guess what, couldn't see site's.
He said he looked away and back at the site's several time to no avail. Just couldn't see them. He held on the buck with the shotgun hoping to see the sites and watched as the buck walked 40yds out, broadside, along the ravine till he went out of sight.
Brother was so PO'd.
He should have never told me this. When he left that evening, knowing he would be back @ 0400, I took the receipt for my Rem 1100 Hi-Viz sites, along with a small flashlight and hung them on his stand tree. With a note that said:
"Attention Mr. Deerhunter,
Until you get these Hi-Viz sites on your gun like your older , much wiser brother put on his, just hold this flashlight on your sites so you can see them.
signed,
Mr. Trophy Buck
That weekend we put TruGlos on his.