Time flies when you’re hot on a deer that steps into your field of view in the last hour of legal shooting.  So does situational awareness.  Darkening skies, deep shadows and falling temperatures are ignored, if noticed at all.  At least, until you have the deer on the ground and you’re looking for the headlamp or the flashlight mode on your camera!

Waiting too Long To Quit Is Never a Good Idea

All of us have pushed on until the last legal minute when a deer was in sight.  And, all of us have had to pay the rent for this kind of lapse by fumbling through familiar tasks in the dark, cold or wet of a fall night. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything!  Nebraska deer hunters know that legal shooting begins thirty minutes before sunrise and ends thirty minutes after sunset.  Less understood is that the law is really a guardrail for avoiding a multitude of unsafe situations.  Lots of things can go “off the rails.”  Diminished vision and wintery cold conditions erodes dexterity and mobility.  Unfortunately, these are the same conditions in which we also lose that last little bit of our good judgment.  Accidents happen.  Sometimes tragedies.

My son (pictured above) and I, found ourselves with a field-dressed deer on the ground and in the dark just ten minutes after sunset.  This shouldn’t have caught us off guard, but it did.  We knew the area well because we were just a half mile from our front door.  The combination of thick clouds and Table Mountain obscured that last bit of light quickly.  Having a deer in the picture made it easy for us to lose awareness of the rapidly diminishing light and the rapidly changing situation.  After a few minutes of spinning wheels in a wet field we found ourselves on the edge of a small ravine.  We simply misjudged how close we had approached the ravine in the dark.  Dumb luck saved us from going over the edge and into a more hazardous situation.

A couple of years later, a few hunters from out of state felt the same urge to stick around long past when they should have been getting back.  You can see their bucks in the truck below.  You can also see the lights on because it was flat dark when we picked them up about ten minutes after sunset!  Although they shot the deer well before sunset, they failed to plan on the time needed to process and pack out from an unfamiliar area.  They were underdressed for the conditions, wind-chilled and lost in a field nearly encircled by deep canyons.  Our conversation afterward convinced me that a little review of our lessons learned and the wisdom of our “shooting times” could help all of us. It could also extend our awareness of the dangers of hypothermia.

Dusk Marks the end of Shooting Hours

Legal shooting hours commence 30 minutes before sunrise or at the start of morning civil twilight.  This moment is also more commonly referred to as dawn.    Dawn marks the time when solar illumination is just beginning to reveal objects that were obscured by darkness a short time earlier.   The sun is now below the horizon — 6 degrees below the horizon, in fact.

In the evening, shooting hours end 30 minutes after sunset, which is the end of evening civil twilight or dusk.  It is dark enough at dusk to start seeing things in the brush, get lost or drive into a ditch.  Depth perception and our ability to distinguish color are both steadily degraded.  Even yellow-tinted shooting glasses, which can make images appear sharper in low light, will become ineffective. If you’re starting back at dusk, you’re already in the danger zone.

Why Is Twilight So Dark?

Weather and terrain obstructions degrades visibility during twilight.  According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, “the amount of natural light available at any particular time during the twilight periods and the actual visibility of objects depends significantly on such factors as local atmospheric conditions, cloud cover and visibility of the horizon”.  Put simply, terrain obstructions, low clouds, overcast, fog and precipitation degrades visibility.  Even hunters familiar with the area can be caught off-guard and overestimate the amount of time they have to pack up and get back to camp in these conditions.

Today, I advise ranch hunters to knock off early enough to get back before dark.  In practical terms this often means starting back at sunset or earlier according to weather conditions.

Verify Your Location and Way Back

Before daylight fades and landmarks disappear, it’s a good idea to verify your location and route back to the ranch house.  Landmarks and trails can look unfamiliar in the dark or disappear altogether.  Revisiting catch features that will alert you when you have gone too far and handrails like a fence or road that can take you home is money in the bank after dark.  This only takes a few minutes in daylight, but can be impossible after a winding walk to recover a deer takes you into unfamiliar territory.

Headlamps Are Not A Luxury

One useful piece of gear which bears mention here is the head lamp.  Headlamps are popular because they are one of the simplest safety items we can carry into the field.  They allow us to keep our hands free for lugging stuff while illuminating the trail and reflective trail markers.

While headlamps are usually bright enough to keep you on the trail, their visibility range is limited.  Even with headlamps one can easily miss splits in the trail or landmarks.  My recommendation —don’t go into the field without one!  Locally, a selection of stocked and special order headlamps may be found at Herron Brothers Tru-Value Hardware stores in Harrison and Crawford, Nebraska.  Call ahead.

Where To Get More Information

Shooting times for our 2024 Nebraska Rifle season can be easily generated with the U.S. Naval Observatory Table of Sunrise/Sunset, Moonrise/Moonset, or Twilight times calculator page.  The Naval Observatory also publishes educational materials and calculators that you can use to find exact sunrise/sunset times for your specific location.  While we know sunset tables tell us when to start and when to quit, experience also taught me the hard part is actually pulling myself away!