People seem surprised when I tell them I enjoy night hunting coyotes more than during the day. It isn't just the fact that I have a higher % of kills during the night. There is just something about the peace and quiet of the night. When you actually have a visual advantage over a night predator. When virtually everyone is asleep, there is something about seeing a glowing coyote coming at you with thermal. Once it gets in your blood, it is hard to stop. I also love stargazing with I² and watching the Northern Lights.

How about the rest of you?

I enjoy the added stealth and blending into the natural environment it provides. Creeping around the dark woods with binos, suppressed SBR with an ATPIAL coming into close contact with an animal that potentially could mess you up is an adrenaline rush.  I also enjoy posting up on a cliff overlooking a riverbank and getting to observe nature in their secret night element.

There's a bit of feeling sneaky and alien-spy-technology about it.  :)

There's also a lot more focus on the hunt and the target: most of the stimuli you have during the day that provides camo, noises, colors, or distraction is removed, and it's just you, a black sky, and the white-hot thermal shapes moving through the high grass towards the killzone.

You're not distracted by the normal, daytime stuff and color variety going on. It's hyper-focused TV screen views, just you and the target through the green (or black-and-white) tube.

I agree about the visual advantage over a night predator

For me predator hunting is right up there with deer hunting but I only predator hunt at night and only from the ground after Dec. Why only after Dec, because getting stalked by bears (happened twice) kind of sucks and almost all bears in my area are hibernating by the end of Dec.

Yikes, that would be scary! I want to be the hunter not the hunted.

Seems like a different world at night. I simply like the peace and quiet that comes with night hunting. In the cooler months here in Florida it's a nice change from the heat and humidity.

You get to see a lot of different animal interactions as well.

I watched a coyote run right through a pack of deer coming to my call, the deer took a few steps to the side and really were not concerned with the coyote. I watched a doe head-butt a rabbit around for about five minutes. I've had owls land right beside me responding to my calls. I've watched countless fights/play fights between raccoons and other animals.

Star gazing during lulls is especially rewarding when you see spectacular meteor showers or spot satellites.

You just never know what you will see... including trespassers which I've arrested quite a few in the past couple years.

Everything.

Varmint hunting at night is the best hunting.

A moonless night, nobody but you and the critters…

I love that I can’t just slip into the woods. Doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. Don’t have to worry about putting camo and stuff on.

I like the contrast with thermal. During the day with a regular optic animals can blend in to their surroundings. There’s no hiding with thermal. Super easy. Setup in the middle of a clear cut or pasture and you can see forever.

This is what I’ve tried to explain to suburban enthusiast guys who are 100% NV and think of thermal as a gimmick in the general NV forum. NV can only let you see, at most, as good as you can in the daytime.

Camouflage works in the daytime. It doesn’t work against thermal.

All the fun stuff happens at night under the cover of darkness.

It's definitely an addiction. Animals seem to behave differently. More like you'd expect from unpressured animals.  I've seen all sorts of cool things while hunting at night that I don't think you'd often see during the daytime.

It's amazing just the amount of movement you get to see of animals that are active in the late hours. I have not used my thermals for night hunting, but I use them for deep back woods camping with my kids in Wyoming. Nothing helps you calm your nerves then when you hear a Griz and can quickly identify where it is around the camp with a quick sweep of thermals. I need to upgrade to some better kit for this but my basic set up has done well for this so far.