Glassing is the name of the game in Western hunting, but it’s not easy. We’re going to help you shorten the learning curve.
Birds of prey are some of the most effective hunters on the planet, and a great deal of that success is due to their eyes. Eagles in particular can see clearly eight times farther than us humans. Their eyesight allows them to stay up high and survey the country beneath them for any hint of a meal.
Essentially, eagle eyes are built-in binoculars, and the way they survey the world offers a huge takeaway for Western hunters.
Of course, we are a far stretch from an eagle in terms of eyesight, but we can absolutely use the same hunting tactic as them by way of glassing with the aid of optics. Glassing will allow us to stay back from afar and survey the country in front of us for “any hint of a meal.”
In short: By efficiently using binoculars and spotting scopes, you’ll stay on the nonintrusive side of things instead of traipsing around willy-nilly and bumping the very animals you’re hunting. Whether it’s notating active travel corridors for a possible ambush setup or bedding an animal down and planning a stalk to their whereabouts, glassing offers a gateway to success.
There are definitely some proven tricks of the trade. Here’s my take on the matter.
How to Glass for Big Game
For context: Glassing, to some, is likely not a familiar term. But for hunters, glassing refers to looking through binoculars or spotting scopes in search of wild game. Though most people know the word glass as a noun, hunters use it quite literally as a verb that translates into looking for animals through “glass.”
Colloquially, hunters will “glass something up” or spend time “glassing” a hillside, in order to better understand the whereabouts of the game they’re after. It’s simply the art of sitting down, pulling out your binos or setting up your spotting scope, and taking the time to truly survey a landscape at a micro advantage.
Good Glass/Tripod/Head Combo

In order to really take your glassing up a notch, you’ll need a few key items. First, buy the best optics that you can afford. The better the glass, the longer you’ll be able to stay behind it.
Buy once, cry once, and you’ll experience less eye fatigue and headaches on the mountain. And these are literal things to worry about.
Next, mounting those optics on a tripod will up your game-spotting abilities tenfold. Looking through still and stabilized optics will allow you to spot movement much better than when freehanding.
And when you do spot an animal, you’ll be able to lock those binoculars in place, so you never lose their location. Stability also combats motion sickness and eye fatigue when glassing for long periods of time.
Lastly, the cherry on top is attaching a fluid pan head to that tripod. Most tripods come with a tripod head to get you started. Stepping it up and swapping it out for something like a Sirui VA-5 will blow your mind, though.
Literally, it’s a game-changing addition. This now allows you to not only have the stability of glassing from a tripod, but also to do so in fluid waves. Cheaper heads on the market tend to be sticky and don’t offer the overall fluidity that others do.
Use the Sun to Your Glassing Advantage

Glass for Things Out of Place

- Horizontal lines: Not many things in the mountains are perfectly horizontal, except an animal’s back, of course. Always pay mind to these. The line might just move all of a sudden.
- Colors: Getting in tune with the color of the animal you’re looking for is huge, especially when glassing thicker areas. The yellowish body of an elk, the white rump of a mule deer, or the black hide of a bear are examples.
- Texture: Whether it’s a velvet antler, hard-horned antler, or hide, these are all textures that are different from the rest of the landscape. The more you glass, the more you’ll start recognizing them.
Move If You Need To, But Wait It Out First
Slow Down … A Lot

Glass Early, Glass Late
Eyes on the Prize
