Blood Trailing Light

Am a huge bow hunter as you can see by my name, what light would everyone recomend for blood trailing a wounded deer???? Have used the standard 3-D cell mag lights for years. But now that I found this site I can see I probable have options of better and smaller lights.

from surefire: Blue Filter produces a smooth beam of blue light. Hunters use the blue filter to track wounded game at night because blood stands out more distinctly against foliage when viewed under blue light.

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I think a blue filter would be useful for your purpose.

Marc

Yes the blue filter is the one to have, you can use a Surefire 6 P with a blue filter or you can get a Maglite 2 C, with two Li Ion 18650 and a Xenon Magnum Star lamp for 5 cells (available at Home Depot) and the Maglite kit (it comes with red and blue and an extra lens and the rubber filter holder as well as the clamps)

Rechargeable and with a long runtime, that is what I recommend to my bowhunters friends and what I use myself when bowhunting.

Juan C.

I think for tracking a deer a couple different lights would come in handy. One with long runtime and one with a good throw, in case the deer got up way ahead and you need to see which way he go's. I would just use the blue filter when the blood gets sparse. They don't put out much light. You'd be tripping over logs.

You might want to check out the Browning Black Ice Xenon/LED flashlight. It usess 2x123A cells, has a bank of 6 LEDs and a Xenon Incan bulb. Press the switch and two bight red LEDs provide night vision preserving light. Press again and two Blue LEDs take over to allow for blood tracking, the blood absorbs the blue light and appears as black. Press again and two bright white 5mm Leds provide good close range flood light. Press again and the High pressure xenon bulb puts out a bright focusable throw beam.
The light lasts for about 25 hours on the LED bulbs and Two hours on the xenon bulb.

The only down sides to this light is that you have to press the switch five times to cycle through all the options to turn the light off. Also with the 5mm LEDs being in the reflector, there are lots of artifacts in the Xenon beam, especially when the light is defocused for flood. But the white LEDs should be adequate for close up flood. Of course the beams will be broken up by the foliage anyway.
They come on two camo color schemes and can be had for about 50 bucks, less if you shop around. The black ice series is a range of Browning flashlights so be careful to pick the option for the combo light. It really is a cool flashlight.

I am a hunter also and I am always searching for better lights to use for hunting. For blood trailing I tried a light with a white led this year. I was very impressed with the results I had. I have tried the blue filters but they did not seem to help me. The white led light is it for now.

I'm not impressed with blue LEDs for tracking blood. I prefer a good blue filter over an incandescent. Not all filters are quality though. SF's FM series are good blue filters. Incandescents are best because a lot of the red spectrum still passes through the filter and illuminates the blood while everything around it is dark shades of blue. Blue LEDs don't have enough red to illuminate blood, it just shows up black.