I have a green light mounted to my bow and every time I turn the light on the hogs bolt immediately. I have tried pointing it directly at them when turning it on, I have tried turning it on while pointing straight up and lowering it onto them but they'll run before they're even in the light. Needless to say, I am getting plenty of opportunities and my frustration is building. I am trying to avoid investing any more money into something like a Kill Light or any sort of additional light systems because I have numerous stands/feeders. Any advice?

No experience on this, but have you tried a red filter/light?

Use Red.

Green light is a spectrum that hogs can see for one....and depending on the intensity and distance they are either seeing the 'source' (your light) or the projected pattern. Another thing hogs are sensitive about is ANY light source that suddenly causes a cast shadow of themselves or items nearby.

Many folks light to use a green light because WE can see it better than red and objects appear brighter (but with less detail than red).

Red light is 'less' likely to spook them...but the same cautions apply about intensity and shadowing.

The OP asked for advice because of numerous failings using lights to hunt hogs at night and numerous stands/feeders to watch. My advice to you is to stop using visible lights. Go ahead and drop a few hundred bucks on a decent day/night digital setup that will come with an IR illuminator. This will increase your chances dramatically. If you go with 940 nm on the IR light, your distances will be reduced by 10-20%, but there will be no visible glow from the light. If you go with 850 nm, your distance will be greater and the light will appear brighter, but it will have a visible glow (see below). Something like one of the Sightmark Wraith 4k mini would be great.

If you can afford it, you might try for $1700-1800 for a Sightmark Wraith thermal or Rix Storm S3 thermal (I would take the Rix).

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Years ago, I did an unscientific studies of hogs coming to a water hole. I had a red light, green light, and white light. The green and red were the same light (make and manufacturer), just different colored pill.

Hogs reacted least to the red light, then green, then white. HOWEVER, and this is huge, how the light was brought onto the hogs mattered most. Turn on the light skyward and slowly lower the light so that the splash illuminates the hogs (not the hot central portion) and they are much less prone to run. Turn on any of the lights while shining directly at the hogs, and they were instantly gone.

Oh yeah, don't try shining lights at the hogs when they are looking in your direction. I know that is hard when there are 30 hogs on the ground facing all different directions, but you mentioned getting repeatedly busted. This may be one reason why.

Distance was approximately 30 yards.

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With all that said, I hunted with IR lights for years. There is nothing freakier than being 80-100 yards out from a group of hogs and everything is fine until you turn on the IR light, for which they cannot see the shine. All that they could possibly see was the faint glow at the light (850 nm), yet I watched hogs react to the reg glow of the IR light numerous times. Why did they react? Association. They had come to associate the little red light with danger. Hogs that have been lit up by other lights and survived have learned from the experience. Even if you follow correct light discipline, the hogs may still freak out because they have played your game before.

We have hogs that will run when they see brake lights from cars on the roadway. They know what that means as well.

Thanks DNS. This question keeps coming up (and it's a good question) and the answer always "depends" and even then there are exceptions. Your declining list of colors matches mine. But it's those exceptions that keep hunters scratching their heads. You'd think those pigs would understand the rules by now.

Or do what I do. On one of your numerous stand feeder setups install one of the cheap $20-$50 solar 100+ led street lights or security lights as an experiment. Mine are mounted to trees as high as I can reach from the top of a stepladder and of course situated where the light is shining away from the direction of my stand. Give it some time and before long those sounders will care less about the light. It does not take long. All my feeders on two leases East and West Texas have two security lights over each one now. The hogs trigger them multiple times during each visit and could care less about them. In fact when the light flashes on, as long as I am quiet about it, I could probably get out of my stand and do jumping jacks without scaring them due to them being blinded by the bright security light above them. More than once I have been packing up to go home walking back and forth from my stand to my truck loading up and have hogs lit up under my feeder and pay no attention to me. But if I hit those same hogs with a spotlight from stand or walk up to them with a flashlight, they do scatter. And when I was using the digital night vision at those stands before I went back to security lights, yes I too experienced some hogs absolutely get jittery when they saw the glow from the IR on the scope. Night vision is no longer needed at those stands, but if I am using it, I don't turn on the IR light anymore because I get more than enough light from the security lights.

If you will run a feeder light they will get accustomed to it and not spook with a kill light of any color.

Two links first...
https://youtu.be/amrl36i-eag?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/bRFuASsqndc?feature=shared

Both filmed the same night. I had a while light and could literally walk up to them . If I had someone to hold the light I could have swatted one on the [censored].

But... I hunted this same sounder 1/4 mile away and they would bolt if I hit them with a white light. Why? They get used to their surroundings and what is normal and what is not. Just as noted above. Tonight I tagged a boar I've been after all summer. Sometimes he reacts to my camera going off bt the feeder, sometimes not. I've seen him numerous times (I have a thermal monocular). He spooks when I hit him with a green light at 80 yards. Just on the throw edge. And it's hard to see a dark hog with a dark background. Anyway, tonight he split but went 15 feet and stopped. His mistake.

I've never tried the red lens as I've heard green is better. I may try it. As noted, if they are use to the light, sound( I have vid on public land of hogs paying no mind to a freight train going by 50 feet away.), etc.

Bottom line, it depends.🤷‍♂️

Put solar powered lights above the feeders - attracts them - they can't 'see' much better than us in darkness. For bow hunting range, wouldn't need a kill light.

I would argue that hogs see better in low light than most people think. Not on par with animals that have a 'Tapetum' in their eyes (Deer, Raccoons, Coyotes, Fox, Cats, etc) but well enough that they can run full tilt through brush, trees, etc....without hitting them.

So I missed the "bow" reference above. My bad. Investing in nv or thermal isn't going to help this situation. I think dedicated feeder lights is the right way to go unless somebody has figured out a way to mount NV and thermal on bows other than crossbows. The lights will stay on and the hogs and other wildlife will get used to them, no spooking. You can buy an expensive kill light from a leading brand and likely spend big money or you can go really cheap and get some basically disposable lights that will probably last a couple of seasons without much trouble, or go midway and buy some decent home style solar security lights. I like the cheaper lights as they seem more cost effective overall, though they require replacement more often.



Agree 100%. It amazes me to watch a sounder run through the woods in pitch black darkness (to me without thermal) and NOT run into trees. I have watched hogs run a couple hundred yards back to a single hole in the fence when it was dark enough that I couldn't even see the trees behind the fence, much less the fence, and they ran to the hole in the fence when the shooting started. That is impressive.

Their forward day vision is on par with human day vision. They have about a 30-50 degree forward binocular FOV, however, whereas humans have about 120 degrees of forward binocular vision. Their side and rearward vision aren't nearly as acute. They have less forward binocular vision because their eyes are more side mounted than ours and so they get a FOV over over 300 degrees whereas ours is more like 190.

I use this a lot, but people commonly equate behavior with capability. People think that if the animal doesn't respond to stimuli, that it is incapable of sensing the stimuli, only they sense it, but aren't responding to it. I think it goes back to the myth that animals can't see you if you don't move. So that would mean anything stationary was invisible to the animals and that they would constantly crash into invisible stationary items, but they don't. They see you just fine in many cases, but if your behavior is not threatening in some manner, they don't run away.

Fun Aggie joke about behavior and capability, but is also a neat lesson:

Aggie scientist has a flea and a board marked with concentric circles denoting distances. He places the flea in the middle of the circles, slaps the table next to the flea and yells JUMP! and the flea jumps. He then recorded the distance.
Next, he removed one leg and repeated the process. The flea jumped, but a little less far.
He repeats this process and the distance continues to decline.
Finally, he pulls off the last leg, places the flea in the middle of the circles, slaps the table and yells JUMP! and the flea doesn't move. He repeats slapping and yelling 3 more times and the flea doesn't move at all.
So in the conclusions section of his notes, the Aggie scientist noted, "And when the last leg is removed, the flea has gone completely deaf..."

Not sure if these are yotes or hogs. Act like hogs but have a see-able tail. Pic is about 80 yds IR, no moon night. Green feeder light overhead can be discerned. No corn on the ground. Moonless night and they go to the feeder. Couldn't see them except with IR. They ran onto the field with new pine and waist high fennel to hide. Last yr I was about 40yds away and 'noticed' movement only, IR they showed good. Same feeder. Obviously they do have better NV than we do but I had one of these stop and look right at me trying to figure out what happened. Probably would have gone back to the feeder if I hadn't shot again. As a note: red light at a distance is easier for us to see than green, at night. Unfortunately (for us) under red illumination, dark objects disappear! Banged my head many times under red lighting.

Like said, I use a cheap motion harbor freight solar light, go to hobby lobby, buy green see through film, duct tape on, you’re done, hogs at feeder get used to it, they could care less. I just ordered Amazon 2 for $30 bucks, more powerful.

I have also used the solar lights from Harbor Freight. I don't bother to put green film on them. The hogs get used to the white light pretty fast.

I want it to be white and bright. With that light angled down towards them and away from my position, I believe it blinds them from seeing me moving around better than a green or red light would.

I'm a fan of white light too.

Many years ago we bought Hog Sniper lights in both green and red and mounted them to our scopes. Both would make hogs run when we put the light on them. The brightness, regardless of which color was too much. I took some duct tape and covered the lens on my HS light. I t cut a thin cats eye about a 1/4" wide at it's widest point. Problem solved. It provided just enough light for me to see and shoot and not disturb or bother the hogs. I actually contacted Hog Sniper and said they should create a lens cap that you can turn like an aperture on a camera. Tune and open a little or a lot. I never heard back from them.

Now we run both green or red solar lights at each feeder. Problem solved.

Thank you all for the input!

I will be hanging some amazon motion sensor lights as soon as they come in. Because it is only for bow ranges, I will be going with a less intense light. I have cell cameras at the feeders so I will be able to see how the deer react but is there a major concern of it running off my deer?

I doubt it. When I ran a white solar motion light for hogs, deer would often come in and trigger it. On one occasion a group of does were feeding when a large boar came in and chased them off. After some huffing and puffing, the does returned and chased off the boar. That's the only time I've seen it happen, but the does were heavily pregnant and apparently not in the mood to let the boar take 'their' corn!

The deer and the pigs will get accustomed to it in a night or two. After that they won’t care. I have a blinding metal halide light here and they don’t even notice it anymore.

Ntxtrapper, is your light motion sensing, always on or dim/full motion sensing?

It’s always on at night. This doe thinks the light god provides the feed and when they run out she stares at it