Need a good tracking light for small blood droplets in thick cover

I had a situation this year having to track a deer about 40 yards in the natiest cover ever. Waist high grass, blowdowns and pitchblack out. I tried my D cell maglight, a lantern type kryton bulb and a LEd light I finally got smart and went back to the house and got my Brinkman Legend Xenon light. This was the only light that reflected the blood. I have used these blood tracking LEDs in the past and they were useless. The LED's I've used are older generation with the blue hue that for my tracking needs is useless. I am looking for a light that may have more burntime than the 2 123a Legend.

I was at first wanting a light that would focus as I am not certain about the tightness of the beam on a fixed light. Any light with rings or shadows would not work well for blood trailing. I am not concerned about long range lighting, 50 yards would be plenty as where I hunt, 50 yards of woods clear enough to see is uncommon. I hunt the nasty stuff because the deer around my area almost never expose themselves during daylight hours and when they travel its in the thickets and high grass on logging roads that were clear cut years ago.

The Blood lights that I myself and my hunting partner used were disappointing. These lights show blood as black, but there is alot of dirt and debris that show as black also and the black they have shown wasn't all that defined. I have not used any CREE led lights and am wondering if there is a Xenon based light that may have longer battery life than the Legend or are there any LED lights that have a clean white light that will reflect blood, even a combo light would be greta except I have seen none that use the Xenon and crees together.

I am trying to stay at $75.00 or under. I am retired Air Force and money isn't what it used to be, I am concerned as I was lucky this years deer was taken behind my house and if I had been where I usually hunt 25 miles away I may have had some real problems and lost a deer. I have not lost one yet, but have spent over an hour on my knees due to inferior lights just to go 100 yards or less to recover an animal in the dark. The deer where I hunt seem to be nocturnal and unless pushed come out at about the last half hour of light. All replies and suggestions much appreciated.

Aim-High! I have three options that will work, and I would try them in this order, for cost sakes:

-Get a Craftsman LED upgrade module ($15 at Sears) and make that useless angle-head GI flashlight useful again. Replace the PR6 krypton bulb w/ the Craftsman LED, and put the Blue/Violet lens on, and voila!

-Get a Gerber Carnivore (if you haven't already tried one)

http://www.gerbertools.com/search.aspx?d=10&m=100000

-Get a Surefire G-2 ($36) or G-2LED ($64) and get the blue filter for it ($27?). This option will give you the best quality and throw but will cost the most.

http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/co_disp/displ/prrfnbr/878/sesent/00

http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/co_disp/displ/prrfnbr/871/sesent/00/FM36-Blue-Filter

Hope this helps! And remember...IYAAYAS!!! :rock:

You may want to look at one of these:
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...de+matchall&Nty=1&Ntt=alaskan+guide&noImage=0

I picked a blue one up yesterday in their bargain cave or whatever they call it for $29.44.
So far it seems like a pretty decent light (for what I paid). In all honesty I wouldn't have paid full price for it, I don't think it's worth it. Made in China and seems like it, and doesn't hold a candle to Fenix quality IMHO.
(Trying this out just makes me want an Aviator all the more )
One of these nights I'm gonna try taking pictures of beamshots with my Canon SLR, we'll see how that turns out.
It may not meet all your needs but at least if it doesn't after trying it out you can take it back for full refund.
Hope this helps!

Hello, N.H. Yankee.

You have a great advantage. You know exactly what you want. I believe you are on the right track looking into an incandescent solution. It's a matter of personal perception. I can't get a good image return from blood unless I'm using a powerful incandescent. I believe this is because of the broad spectrum of light being produced.

Let me see if I have this correct.

Returns image of blood.

Tight beam.

Fits in fanny pack.

1 hour runtime.

< than $75.00

CR123s OK.

My first thought would be a modified Maglite, sometimes referred to as a Hotwire, in a 2C or 3C format using rechargeable batteries. But see there, now I've got you into an area requiring a stand alone charger and I've blown the budget. I just know that a Welch Allyn WA01111 lamp in a reflector that size will give you the power and tightness you need.

Some of the other guys know the specs and performance of myriads of incandescent lights. You may get suggestions to get a LumensFactory or other lamp upgrade to the flashlight host. I have a Pila with a LF EO-9L right here. It's bright at around 400 lumens and white all right but it might not be tight enough for your purposes. I believe that may be the most important component of the beam characteristics needed for tracking around in a highly obstructed area. Less light clutter from peripheral images.

I'm thinking you want something about the size of a Streamlight TL-3, twice as strong, tighter beam and about the same price. I think member FiveMega might have something like that. If I remember what it was I'll post it.

This should be an interesting thread.

BTW, Kudos on the well constructed question.

N.H. Yankee,
What type of blood lights have you been using? I know that there are some that do not work as well as others.

Wolf-Eyes 9AX $45
runs on 3xCR123 for about an hour, will be even brighter than your legend, will have an even smoother beam (less artifacts).

Switch to a LumensFactory ES-9 lamp module to increase runtime to around 90+ minutes with similar output as your legend, just extended runtime.

Save up some cash to later upgrade it to a pair of 18500 li-ion rechargeable cells (about another $35-40 will get ya some good cells and a charger)

My buddy and I have been committed to incans for blood tracking and I'm using a Surefire E2E with the low-output 25 lumen bulb for 2.5 hours of solid light. However, this past year my buddy wanted to consolidate his hunting pack to AA batteries only so I recommended he try a Fenix L1D Cree for good runtime and a standard AA battery to match his GPS. The Cree LED worked great for him this past bow season tracking a deer some 200 yards over a 5 hour period. Adequate runtime, great brightness, and good enough color rendition, plus the standard AA battery (lithiums seem to work best) sold him. In fact, the strobe option actually worked well for marking his location for another hunter linking up late that night. Incans are still best for spotting a downed animal at a distance but for detailed tracking the L1D worked surprisingly well.

Bloodlights used were the Gerber Carnivore and a cheopo wallyworld my hunting buddies son had. neither were very good at all and the Xenon based Legend put them to shame. I went to Archerytalk and most agree the blood tracking lights are a gimmick with the exception of the light made by Xenopus, but the pricetag is WAY out of my league as of now. Archerytalk hunters swear by the Coleman lanterns, but it sure ain't going to fit in my fannypack and it may be great for stand hunters near home or truck. I tend to walk or stalk and have been known to be 3 miles away from vehicle or road by dusk so my needs are more portable. I live where the deer population is 1 per square mile or less so one needs to make things happen and pursue.

I imagine that the bloodlights may work well in the midwest in fields or open area, but I am usually in thick woods that have old logging roads that aren't well defined. Lat year I had a dead I tracked 60 yards and had my 2 dragging partners litterally 15 feet from the deer and pointed to where it was in the blowdowns and briars, they could not see it until I walked to it and put my hand on the buck, yeah its that thick and nasty. Another one with a vague bloodtrail but massive internal leakage. Problem is with heartshots the heart stops pumping, but the animal can run up to 100 yards. No pump, no blood, the work begins.

Would a UV light be any good for bloodtrailing? I was looking at the Streamlight Twintask 3C-UV Xenon and UV, good part is if it doesn't work on blood I might find that annoying oil leak in my car lol. What is the difference between a high pressure xenon bulb and Bi-pin, and I am under the impression that some Xenon lights have a unit instead of just a replaceable bulb which may be more expensive to replace. Has anyone dealt with Opticsplanet, their prices seem good and include shipping but I am wondering about service such as return policy?

Lights I am considering:
Streamlight: 3C-UV / propoly 4aa Luxeon LED, Fenix P3D.

I can't say anything about the UV, but I can tell you that if you EVER wanted to go rechargeable, avoid that P3D like the plague, an L2D CE on NIMH AAs will be much more practical than tracking down a decent set of RCR123s, (there are none that run a P3D with any decent runtime). The 4AA ProPoly is a neat old school light that is still impressive for it's very tight throw beam, but keep in mind it uses a much older LED with lower efficiency, the new crees not only make more light per watt, but also seem to make a "nicer" light that is getting closer to an ideal output (not perfect but better than the Luxeons IMO).

Again, please avoid that P3D if you ever think you want to go rechargeable, I swear it happens so often these sell like hot-cakes and nobody thinks of it till after they already have it in their pocket, then they decide they want to EDC it and run rechargeables, and then they feel kinda gipped on the purchase because the only rechargeable options run the turbo mode for about 40 minutes or less.

for blood tracking I find you need over 200 lumens of white light to make spotting blood easier. since you already have a maglite, get a malkoff drop in with a OP/stipple reflector

I believe uv light would work but the ground needs to be sprayed with luminol or other reagent

try this site

www.bloodglow.com

Again, my own perception:

We know blue turns blood black and UV requires luminol.

To my eyes red LEDs wash the color red out of every thing. Try a red LED on a road map. To illustrate this wash-out, I borrowed a friend's Canon a few minutes ago. Below you'll see images of a black and white copy of a news magazine. On the border of an indistinguishable photo on that copy you'll see three targets. One is a drop of almost dried blood. One is a drop of fresh blood. The other target is the words "Red ink" written in red ink. The test is not perfect because we are using different intensities of light. I got the red LED right next to the targets, pointed the white LED right at targets and pointed the incan below the targets in an attempt to equal the playing field. The test shows close to what my eyes see. The incan seems less yellow/orange in real life. The photos do demonstrate what images these frequencies of light will return from the targets fairly well.

5mm nichia red LED. Notice that the words "Red ink" look black and the blood looks like the same color as everything else, IOWs, washed out.[FONT=&quot]





[/FONT]200+ lumen Malkoff Cree bin Q5. One of the nicest colors in LEDs I've ever seen. Now we can see something useful that looks like blood and red ink.
[FONT=&quot]


[/FONT]400+ lumen LumensFactory EO-9L. Notice that now we can see some red from the dried blood and the fresh blood is more vibrant. In real life it looks a tad less orange but the vividness is there because, I believe, we are getting more frequencies of color being returned.

I hope this was of some help.

Icebreak said:

Again, my own perception:
200+ lumen Malkoff Cree bin Q5. One of the nicest colors in LEDs I've ever seen. Now we can see something useful that looks like blood and red ink.

pic

400+ lumen LumensFactory EO-9L. Notice that now we can see some red from the dried blood and the fresh blood is more vibrant. In real life it looks a tad less orange but the vividness is there because, I believe, we are getting more frequencies of color being returned.

pic

I hope this was of some help.

Click to expand...

I don't see the incan as being really better than the Q5.

Much of this is individual perception. For me, seeing the red in the dried blood tells me the image is returning more information. If trying to find a wet blood trail it appears that the Malkoff Devices M60 Q5 would do fine. For you and your individual perception the Cree LED works fine and your perception is 100% valid.

For other folks the red LED might be the ticket. My eyes perceive less than useful information from its image return.

Icebreak said:

Much of this is individual perception. For me, seeing the red in the dried blood tells me the image is returning more information. If trying to find a wet blood trail it appears that the Malkoff Devices M60 Q5 would do fine. For you and your individual perception the Cree LED works fine and your perception is 100% valid.

For other folks the red LED might be the ticket. My eyes perceive less than useful information from its image return.

Click to expand...

Also the Q5 image is glaring off of the dried blood, and the incan one isn't. That makes a difference.

[/quote]Lights I am considering:
Streamlight: 3C-UV / propoly 4aa Luxeon LED, Fenix P3D.[/quote]

Good info on the Fenix you are considering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaKJrulN1zU

Good luck

I see that now. Good observation. And yet where it is not glaring I'm not getting an image return with as much information. Let me go check in the real world again.

BRB.

Yes. In the real world, by my personal perspective, the incan is returning much more useful information. I'm glad I checked again. The drop that was wet is now dry. By my perspective the difference between the Cree and the incan is spectacular.

If you tried the experiment yourself you may come to a different conclusion. A fresh N.Y. York strip steak would make a good target.