I was raised the son of a New York deer hunter. My upbringing in accordance with the DEC regulation book was that using a light at night for hunting is completely taboo. My use of lights has always been confined to nighttime tracking of bow-hit deer, and I have woefully struggled—even to this recent season past—with finding the right light. It wasn’t until my foray into nighttime predator hunting a decade ago that I began using a frustratingly low-quality red light, strapped to my scope, to hunt the big Eastern coyotes that had been harassing my deer herd all winter.
Adventure bowhunter/ScoutLook Pro Staffer Tom Miranda with a 2013 wild boar taken on a nighttime spot-and-stalk hunt using Elusive Wildlife Technologies Kill Lights mounted on his Mathews Heli-m bow.
When I met the owners of Elusive Wildlife Technologies at a trade show, they insisted that if I ever came to Texas, I had to come and hunt hogs with them. Little did I know, accepting their offer would lead to an experience that was intense, exciting and educational in every way.
I’ve been fortunate to have hunted more than most people, but there are still lots of “NEVERS” in my history as a hunter, and especially as it applied to my arrival in the beautiful Hill Country of Western Texas. Namely, I’d never hunted in Texas; never hunted hogs; never hunted over a feeder; never sat in a treestand after dark; never had a “Kill Light” strapped to my bow; never heard of a Shot Spotter Light; and never used Illumitacks while tracking. So after 34 years of bowhunting, I was a novice again. Never had I ever considered nighttime bowhunting even possible, much less prepared myself for all that was about to happen.
Riding in style in the Elusive Wildlife Texas Cadillac!
Chad Stevenson and Scott York, the collective brains and brawn behind Elusive Wildlife Technologies, had driven 4 hours from their shop in Conroe, Texas, met me in Austin, and delivered me into the heart of the Hill Country some 2 hours to the west. The day was fading now, and Scott scrambled to screw a Kill Light into the stabilizer threading on my bow. As he worked, he explained that the light had a 100-yard range, and it would light up every hog that came within bow range with the press of a button he’d strapped to the grip of my Mathews Heli-m in a matter of seconds. “You’re all set”, he said, grabbing his pack from a hook on the wall. “Here are some other goodies you’ll need”. One by one, he pulled out items that were sharply dressed in black and bright-green packaging, explaining each of them to me as he opened them.
“This is a Shot Spotter. It’s a red laser you will use to mark the last spot you see the hog after the shot. Clip it to your stand, turn it on, and put the laser on the last known spot of the hog. That way, when we go to track him, we can walk directly to the blood trail.”
“Here is our tracking light. It’ll fit in your pants pocket, but don’t let the size fool you … it’s intensely bright and has a 4-foot diameter with a really even beam when held at waist height. You can see blood without bending over and killing your back. There are high and low settings. The high beam gives you the ability to look 150 yards out in front of you to scan for game.”
“These are Illumitacks. They’re magnetic and incredibly bright. Stick them under your hat brim if you need to see up close while you’re in your stand. We use them to mark blood-trail points, and they’re crazy good for tracking in this thick brush.”
I pulled on my new LaCrosse Snake Boots. They felt comforting on my shins as I headed out the door. I was on edge, but ready for the adventure. There was something about setting foot onto this almost foreign landscape, full of snakes, scorpions, cactus, wild boar and other potentially unpleasant things that were odd enough to keep me off balance in the daylight, but doing it for the first time in complete darkness felt insane.
Chad Stevenson was waiting on a buggy to take me to my stand, and I shined the red Kill Light on him as I approached. He was wearing black sneakers. “You don’t wear snake boots?” I asked. “Nope, I like my tennis shoes,” he answered. “I stepped on a couple of buzzers in the dark while stalking hogs over the years and I was probably lucky to get missed”. That was the beginning of my now firm belief that these guys were truly hardcore hunters and outdoorsmen, and know more about hog hunting (as well as predators and deer) than most men on the planet.
Chad Stevenson: The real Texas “Pig Man”!
Our footsteps on the dry grass and brush hastened as we made our way to the stand. The clouds had snuffed out a full moon, and all the blackness was palpable. Chad’s hat, brimmed with Illumitacks, was all he used to navigate the cactus and stones as we walked. A faint green light appeared 100 yards ahead of us. “That’s the Feeder Light,” Chad pointed out. “It’s got a solar power cell, and a switch that turns it on after dark so it doesn’t drain the battery, so you never have to enter the feeder area and stink it up while turning it on.” He turned and pushed on toward the light. “They have good sense of smell?” I whispered as we walked. “Unbelievable,” he said.
I was a bit curious by Chad’s response that they had “unbelievable” sense of smell. The ability of a completely inexperienced hog hunter (especially a Yankee like me, in uncertain territory) to underestimate the survival abilities of wild hogs is very high. Correspondingly, my expectations of the degree of difficulty of hunting them were dumbed down to this: Hogs are obtuse, slovenly animals. Hogs love food. The feeder has corn. Hogs will come and I will stick them with arrows. No trouble at all!
In the darkness, sounds creep over the landscape and seemingly magnify themselves greatly in the absence and distraction of your sight, and the feeder light now was a glowing green patch of solace that illuminated a broad circle of ground around the feeder.
Hogs lit by the Elusive Wildlife Technologies feeder-mounted Kill Light.
I heard grunting behind us and turned to hear footsteps approaching. I pointed the riser of my bow toward the sound and pressed the button on the Kill Light. The red beam lit up the landscape. As I swung it in the direction of the oncoming noise, I spotted my first boar. He was medium-sized, closing fast at about 40 yards. He would pass directly by me at 10 yards on his way to the feeder. The hitch, though, was the curling wind that hit him in the snout and sent him whirling off into the brush in a flash. He showed no hesitation like a whitetail often will—just gone! I was simply amazed at how spooky he was, and also how intense it was to see him in the beam of that light and nearly get a shot.
Author/ScoutLook Co-Founder Cy Weichert (safe in his snake boots) with his first wild hog.
The next hour was full of action as the feeder went off and several groups of hogs piled in. Controlling population is critical to ensuring less competition on the ranch for the whitetails, so my first shot selected a big sow that had come in under the feeder light with a small boar. She moved skittishly, jumping nervously about trying to get our wind. Finally, she presented a broadside view. With my Kill Light painting her red, I released and watched my Carbon Express Blue Streak and Laser Eye Lighted Nock sail straight through her and into the West-Texas earth. I followed here with the Kill Light on my bow and held it on the last bush where she had disappeared. I took the Shot Spotter out of my pocket, clipped it to the safety strap on the tree, beamed it onto the bush and turned off my Kill Light. In all, I shot three hogs in a 2-hour span, each of them warier that the last, and I had a half dozen others approach only to catch my wind and vanish. It was one of the more exhilarating hours of my hunting career, and one I will never forget.
In New York, we have no substantial population of hogs to hunt. So, in a way, I was disappointed in heading home that I had to unscrew the Kill Light from the stabilizer threading on my bow. The silver lining, however, was learning that I can mount one on my riflescope (with a 250-yard lethal range) for use in hunting coyotes, and these lights have a dramatic advantage over any light I’ve ever found. More applicable, though, were the results from the lights we used in tracking.
First, with the Shot Spotters pinned on the last known spot of each hog I had arrowed, we were able to walk directly to the blood trail with no guesswork and no wasted time. These laser gadgets are truly one of the most efficient, time-saving devices I have ever used in the field. We had solid blood trails from my Rage Xtreme broadheads, but the Elusive Tracking Light was everything as billed. It was super-bright, with a wide beam so that I could see even the smallest blood spots with ease, even when holding the light at my waist level. I’ve tried all sorts of lights, and most recently I found myself using the biggest Mag Light; it’s 19 inches long and holds a heavy rack of D batteries, coupled with an off-the-rack headlamp, which gets uncomfortable to wear on long tracking jobs. These Elusive lights are so compact and effective that I’ll never have to carry my bulky Mag Light, or wear the headlamp, into the woods again.
Scott York of Elusive Wildlife Technologies with a successful night of hunting, including two massive boars.
Chad and Scott are avid deer hunters, and they manage their ranch extensively for whitetails. They harvest only older-aged bucks and film every hunt for posterity and excitement. Hunting hogs started as a necessity for them because hogs can devastate the habitat that’s so essential for managing whitetails. But now, hog hunting has morphed into an absolute obsession and passion for these guys, and spawned a business based on real-world experience and helping hunters.
The team at Elusive Wildlife Technologies is building products that rule the upper end of the technology food chain, yet they hold an old-fashioned, common-sense practicality that will absolutely impact your success in hunting. Whether you’re controlling hogs and predators, or tracking whitetails in the dark, their ingenuity will pay off for you in a way that’s not been duplicated in any light products I’ve ever seen.
The sounds of hogs approaching in the dark. The sight of eyes shining in the Kill Light. And the feeling of wonderment to be among all the elusive and wild creatures that are afoot in the night … there’s nothing like it. Since that trip to Texas, there hasn’t been a single nightfall when I haven’t taken a moment to remember that unique experience.
