Consultant’s Corner with Jordan Christensen: Glassing Western Big Game

5 Tips for Glassing Western Big Game

WTA Consultant Jordan Christensen passed along some great tips for improving your glassing and ultimately finding better trophies!

1. Use the Right Gear

Quality optics and a tripod are the only pieces of equipment that a hunter can purchase that will immediately make him or her better at pursuing western big game.

2. Stabilize Your Scope

Glassing without a tripod with both spotting scopes and binoculars is almost wasting your time; if you are not rock solid and steady, you will not notice the subtle changes in the area you are hunting, and you will quickly fatigue without the support a quality tripod can offer. This stability will allow you to start seeing pieces of the animal through the brush and cover, which at first glance look as solid as a wall. Instead of looking for the entire animal, you will start to notice an ear flicker or the glint off an antler that has just been touched by the sun.

3. Don’t Skimp on Scan Time

Too often I see hunters quickly scan an area and immediately move onto the next. Sometimes this even happens while they’re seated in the cab of a vehicle. You can have the best optics money can buy, but if you are scanning in this fashion, you are definitely not getting the most out of these products.

4. Plan Your Approach

Nowadays we have access to GPS chips and satellite images. Many hunters utilize these resources in their pre-hunt preparations. While you are looking for water and other terrain features that often create concentrations of the animals in the area, pay attention to potential glassing points and how you will access these areas without spoiling the area you plan to hunt. This is similar to how a whitetail hunter would plan his approach into his tree stand.

5. Use a Grid

Grid out the area you are hunting and glass each grid over and over again at different times of the day! You will start to notice changes or movement, and when the sun moves across the sky, it’ll change where the shade is entirely. I promise, you will glass more animals than you would have ever imagined.