Hunt Smart

[Icebreak]

Brightnorm -

I grew up basically in two similar sized cities and still live in a city but close enough to the river that it's an easy walk. I prefer the country but have yet to be able to afford a nice place there. I guess that technically where I live there is nothing that could be considered truly metropolitan...just a large town with the largest building being 40 stories.

I should say that maybe I'm incorrect in my cavalier attitude toward five or six 18 to 24 inch cottonmouth being around me. More than that and I move on. I think they can be just as injurous as the larger ones. They just seem stupid and crazy. Now, the three footers seem smart, crazy and almost evil to me. I don't want to be around them at all.

Copperheads? Just big worms with fangs. Step on their neck and cut their heads off. I don't even bother with them.

Rattlesnakes? Possible Death. Sometimes you'll get a warning but often not. You would not find me tromping around with DiesleDave on a roundup, kevlar body armor or not. They strike fear in me. If I see one at least I know he'll let me go another way.

Off off topic here:

I took a spin on a little 550 Four up to Mt. St. Helens I think two years after it blew. Man, that was beautiful. It was so much fun riding at that elevation with that view. It felt like flying. (Not a pilot) I don't remember being scared until I thought about it years later. I kept it at 50 mph. or under. It must have been great to have cruised the Colorado Rockies on a scooter. I get a little chill just thinking about it.

[ QUOTE ]
X-CalBR8 said:
Icebreak: I sure have to hand it to you. You have a lot of guts to be on a boat at night with snakes swimming all around you, unarmed. At least I'm guessing you are unarmed since you didn't mention bringing any weapons with you.


[/ QUOTE ]

Boat? What boat? I'm standing next to the lake or in the stream.

.22 Baretta is my fishing preference. Depending on location I might carry something more substantial but I like the Baretta the best. A few years ago I was looking for an excellent repeating pellet gun for snakes. (never found what I was looking for.) I spoke with several folks at the game commission and was a little shocked to find out that killing snakes in this area is a crime. The idea is that snakes serve an important service in the balance of nature. I understand this. Without snakes, scavenger species would become too predominant. The waterways would be owned by rodents. My problem with that is that they forgot to include me in the equation. If I see a threat I should be able to quell or subtract it. Where I live the Wildlife management guys have great support and I am one of those supporters. If you catch one too many fish and they catch you may get a ticket and it would be wise to pay it immediately. If you are caught blatantly breaking the laws like trying to kill a robot deer or battery shocking the water they will cuff you, take your equipment, guns, boat and truck. If Mr. Game Warden walked up on me and saw a half of a dozen dead snakes floating around I might lose most of what I cherish including my freedom. I choose to deal with the snakes or move on. Will I kill one? You betcha.

At one point you referred to questionable laws that deal with terrorism. It has affected my fishing. One of my favorite places to fish was a very large and lively stream that feeds the city's water supply. Can't be crawling around up in there anymore. It's against the law. It must be teaming with hogs by now.

[ QUOTE ]
X-CalBR8 said:
A 4 123 modded Mag 2C would be ideal for shooting at night like that. Very bright (300 lumens) with a good solid throw and it is very light weight so that you could easily hold it and the gun at the same time. I've already field tested this combo and it works great.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been trying to follow the ultra-Mag-Mod posts. I've recently received two of Electro Lumens' 3AA to D sample holders. I've had an order in place for several of the production '3 to Ds' when Wayne J. finally accepts a quality concept for his production. I am thinking of a M!g 3D running 12 V (13.5) using an Otokoyama aluminum reflector and an flashlightlens . com UCL. I haven't yet been able to figure out what the best bulb would be.

I'd bet your 13.5 V 3C would be great for smart hunting and smart fishing.

 

[X-CalBR8]

Icebreak: "I spoke with several folks at the game commission and was a little shocked to find out that killing snakes in this area is a crime."

Well, crime or no crime, any poisonous snake that comes near me is a dead snake. That's just the way it is. Let's see one of those stupid politicians that made those laws go fishing and not defend himself from a cotton mouth. They are liars if they say they wouldn't.

So far as keeping the rodent population down, that's why I keep cats. Besides, there are plenty of non-poisonous snakes out there. They can all just do double duty when I kill out all of the poisonous ones so far as I'm concerned. There are countries out there that don't even have snakes (anyone from Ireland care to speak up?) and they seem to get along just fine without them, so they can't tell me that it would be some kind of environmental disaster to get rid of cotton mouths around here. I don't buy it.

Have you guys ever seen that cartoon South Park? I don't normally watch it because of all of the really bad language in it these days and all, but I was at a friends house once and the funniest episodes was on. It was a hunting episode where every time they wanted to kill something that was against the law to kill, they would shout "It's coming right at me" and then they would unload into it. That's how I am with cotton mouths. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if we were to kill every last mosquito on this entire planet, except for the last male and female of the species, there would be someone somewhere that would be fighting tooth and nail to "preserve" them, and our stupid government would probably spend millions of dollars of our tax money, breeding the little blood suckers, and then rereleasing them into the wild! There are just a few things in life that I could do without, no matter what the impact on the environment might be, and just about any critter that wants to either inject something into me or suck something out of me is on that list.

Oh, speaking of the Mag mods, I believe Wayne is going to be able to retire off of those 3-To-Ds if they truly work as well as the reports that I've read so far would lead me to belive, well till someone releases a reliable 4-To-D, that is. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif There will be almost nobody on the entire message board that will not get at least a couple of those I'm thinking. I mean, even if you are not going to try for a super bright MR16 mod like I've got planned, just imagine what could be done with just a simple, run of the mill, 2D flashlight with 6AAs in it, or a 3D with 8 or 9AAs in it. I've got several AA "dummy" cells on hand so I could basically shoot for just about any voltage that I wanted. I don't think there will be hardly anyone that will want to keep their 2D flashlight stock after the 3-To-Ds become available and cheap. It will make for such an easy mod that nearly everyone will want to try it.

 

[X-CalBR8]

Wow, I just realized that this thread has just broken the 100 post barrier. I never realized when I made that first post that it would attract so much interest. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that has taken the time to post so far. I've had a lot of fun reading everyone's comments. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[JohnK]

Which goes to show you what people want !!!

Keeping this board sterile, and limited, is BORING !

To get a hundred posts by the rules, you'd have to give away 101 SF A2's to the first 100 customers.

 

[JohnK]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if we were to kill every last mosquito on this entire planet, except for the last male and female of the species, there would be someone somewhere that would be fighting tooth and nail to "preserve" them, and our stupid government would probably spend millions of dollars of our tax money, breeding the little blood suckers, and then rereleasing them into the wild! There are just a few things in life that I could do without, no matter what the impact on the environment might be, and just about any critter that wants to either inject something into me or suck something out of me is on that list.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I'm a student of this world's history, and it is a fact that 99.999999% of ALL the species that have ever lived are already extinct. It's called natural selection..........

Ever wonder what happened to flying large birds, saber toothed tigers, etc; we ate the blasted things.

 

[X-CalBR8]

JohnK: "Ever wonder what happened to flying large birds, saber toothed tigers, etc; we ate the blasted things."

I can't remember when I've seen it put this well, or this eloquently. ROTFL. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Icebreak]

"...We ate the blasted things." maybe because "They were coming right at us." /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

JohnK -

I wonder what the first night hunts using torches looked like. I'll bet the hunters felt a great sense of power hearding a beast to a trap, then a great sense of well being while they feasted.

X-CalBR8 -

Would you mind telling me what bulb you are using in your 4X123 M*g 2C? I would like to know some good bulbs for running at 13.5 Volts. I tried to follow that Carley thread and it looked like they were hard to attain. I had hoped I could simply go to RS and pick up a couple PR bulbs. I need to do a search on MR16 and read about it. Sounds like you have a powerful light planned.

Smart lights at least make me feel like a smarter night fisherman. I can use all the extra smarts I can get.

 

[X-CalBR8]

The bulb that I have in my 2C mod is a Carley #808, but I think others are using an #809 now because a couple of people had a problem with blown 808s. I've been running mine now for a while and haven't flashed a bulb yet, but you can tell that the bulb is being push pretty hard by 4 123s.

If you choose to go with 3 123 Mag 2C mod then you are at a voltage range that is much easier to find a bulb for. At 3 123s, you can get a bulb designed for a Mag 6D, which is a much easier bulb to obtain. I got my Mag 6D bulb at a local Ace hardware. You may be perfectly happy going this route. This bulb is quite a bit dimmer than the Carley, but is still a very bright light and on the upside, you will have about an hour and a half run-time versus about a 50 minute run-time with the Carley #808.

If you go with the Carley bulb option you will run into the $50.00 minimum order that they have now. I don't think they had the minimum order when I ordered mine.

If you decide to go the MR16 route, then I would suggest that you do like many of us are doing and just wait till you can get 4 of the 3-To-D adapters and put them in a 4D Mag. That is by far the easiest approach even if it is not the smallest 12AA configuration possible.

Klaus did a great mod on a 2D Mag where he removed the original Mag switch assembly and fit a soldered together 12AA rechargeable battery pack into a 2D Mag, but that must have been a really tough mod to pull off. The upside to that approach though is that you have the whole package in a 2D instead of a 4D.

If you decide to do a MR16 mod after reading the previous, I would suggest getting a 20Watt Decostar IRC bulb because it has to be one of the most efficient bulbs on earth. Well, technically the 35Watt Decostar IRC is a little bit more efficient, but it takes a lot of juice to push the sucker, but talk about bright! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Here is a link to a thread that I started on where to obtain that very elusive Decostar IRC bulb that I just mentioned. I'm pretty sure that it is still available there. I hope this helps. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Icebreak]

X-CalBR8 -

Wow. Thanks for breaking it all down for me like that. I need to pay better attention to these developments.

Wayne retiring off of the 3 to Ds? Maybe. I would have to agree that it is likely that the majority of CPFers will want several of these. Like you were saying, it is a simple process to drop them in a standard flashlight to attain high voltage. I like your idea of "dialing" them in to an intended voltage by using dummies.

I came to CPF on a hunt for a good LED flashlight and now have several very nice ones. I had intended to use information here to get a good incandescenat. Well, the more I learn the less likely I am to buy anything off the shelf except for a Surefire. (Haven't got one yet. Hope Al isn't watching). The ideas you and others have about making high performance incandescent Modifieds looks like just the ticket for folks like myself with no experience in modifying lights. I'm pretty excited about this. Thanks for your help.

I don't hunt but thought you might. If so, I wanted to know what lights you use in the deer woods to get to your favorite stand.

 

[X-CalBR8]

Icebreak: You are more than welcome. I'm glad that I could be of assistance.

Yeah, once you find out what all can be done with a flashlight, you will hardly ever want to use a stock flashlight again.

So far as an everyday carry light to take hunting that throws out a lot of light and is inexpensive to operate, I would recommend getting a Princeton Tec Surge. It operates on 8AAs, is quite bright in it's stock configuration, and is relatively cheap to operate compared to other flashlights out there that use lithium 123s. If you use rechargeable AAs, you won't get quite as much brightness, but that will bring the operational cost down from cheap to nearly zero. It is also 100% waterproof instead of just being water resistant, like most other flashlights out there. That's a very handy thing in case you get caught in the rain while hunting or any other outdoor activity.

I also carry a Arc LE AAA on my keychain everywhere I go. It is also waterproof and since it has a LED, there is no bulb to die on you so you will always have a reliable light source handy.

 

[Icebreak]

Sounds like a good plan. Surge is still on my list.

 

[brightnorm]

[ QUOTE ]
Icebreak said:
Sounds like a good plan. Surge is still on my list.

[/ QUOTE ]

Surge is a great light but you should know that changing batteries in the field under less than optimum conditions can be problematic. Also, there's a thread somewhere about a problem with the Surge where if it is held upside down in some cases the bulb will de-solder and fall out. I probably don't have that entirely right, but it's worth looking up. I'm about to go out but I'll give a quick look.......

Found it:

SURGE BULB MOUNT FAILURE - WARNING

Brightnorm

 

[Icebreak]

Thanks for that information, brightnorm. Hopefully PT has the problem handled with a harder solder mixture.

United Kinetics SL6 is another "off the shelf" light that hasn't yet dropped off my list. With all the nice beam discriptions I've read about I would like to see it for myself. It seemed like it would perform well in a rough environment.

A little off topic here:

Have you ridden a motorcycle lately? The last time I rode was last fall. It was a friend of mine's Fat Boy. Comfy and powerful. I remember it was fall because when I rapped it in the front yard it became a very efficient and expensive leaf blower. I felt dangerous that day. I cruised at moderate speeds and wore a helmet. I did not, however, carry a flashlight. I don't know what I was thinking.

 

[X-CalBR8]

Supposedly the problems with the bad solder have been fixed, but you might want to make sure that you are buying new stock so that you don't get one of the old ones with the bad solder problem. I think mine is one of the ones with the bad solder and it has never failed me. I think it takes a pretty sharp blow to set off the problem anyway from what others have said about it.

 

[brightnorm]

[ QUOTE ]
Icebreak said:
A little off topic here:

Have you ridden a motorcycle lately? .....

[/ QUOTE ]

Icebreak,

My motorcycle days are far behind me but in the mid-late 60's I became one of the first people in this country to ride the Kawasaki MACH III. A real beast, even by contemporary standards. It was considered one of the most dangerous street bikes ever and a little scary at high speed because it was pretty unstable and you always felt something bad was about to happen, a feeling which proved true for too many riders, but it ws a real thrill to ride.

I forgot the quarter mile figure but I seem to recall 0-60 in 4 sec or less!

Brightnorm

 

[Icebreak]

Wow. By those standards you would be at 300 mph in the time it took me to read your response.

 

[chesterqw]

bump for toad hunting

 

[dano]

Closed. No reason to bump a 3.5yr old thread.