Shooting at night

[pigeon controller]

I've been asked to reduce the rabbits on one of the farms that I pigeon Shoot but it's dificult to ferret and longnet so I decided to dig out my air rifle to shoot it at night. I have a HW97K with the 6volt Deben Tracer compact. I bought it as it was a bargain at the time and other than taking the occasional squirrel in the garden have never used it in a rabbit campaign.

I have a number of questions:-

 

If I just use a red filter on the light will that allow me to shoot without disturbing the rabbits too much??

 

If you fit an infrared lens on the light and scope will that work or do I have to buy an infrared iluminator??

 

I also have a red dot sight I can fit but will that spook the rabbits if you flash it past there eyes??

 

I will be shooting well into dark with no residual light at all so I need to see the targets to shoot them

 

I know that I sound like a real novice but it's a something that I've never done before other than shooting rats 40 years ago with bread spread out around a candle lamp using open sights.

 

Any info will be welcomed

 

Pigeon Controller

[tulkyuk]

if the bunnies have not been shot under a lamp before then you will be fine, other wize you may need to try with a red filter on your lamp.

Can see the need for infared filter unless your using night vision scopes etc.

[steve_b_wales]

A red filter should work better. The Infrared filter would be useless unless you had a NV scope. You could use a NV monocular with day scope adapter like I have. That way, you can see the IR light through your scope. It's a good set up.

[Dave-G]

A white light, not too bright, will initially do the job till they associate it with the phht of death. I say not too bright because you are using an air rifle and have not lamped them before. Thus it should be fairly easy to get reasonably close and only see what is within your air rifle's range. Lifting to scan through the scope will get eyeshine from hardly any light at all within air rifle ranges.

 

As time goes on and the rabbit stock dwindles look to use a little more light for more distant bunnies. Then get closer with the red filter, as dim as you can till ready for the shot. My experience has been that once the bunny has spotted your light and on alert it's best to keep the light on it as you approach silently. All it sees is the light getting larger by such a small amount it stays there till something else, maybe smell or sound scares it off.

 

Lastly, I don't know how much land you have access to but it's soooo easy to overshoot rabbit spots. Ask yourself if it's vermin clearance o- control you really want to do. As I waited about 7 months for my FAC to go through I overshot my first permissions with a sub 12ftlb air rifle.