While I was up on the mountains looking for some elk, we spotted some off in the distance.  And while I was glassing these elk I couldn’t quite pick up the details of these elk because they were clear out there, and because I couldn’t keep steady enough to get a clear picture of what I was looking at.  I told my brother, “I can’t really tell ‘cause I’m shaking.”  He gave me the best piece of glassing advice I’ve ever been told (‘cause how many glassing tips can there really be?), he said to grab my hat. I asked him what he meant by, “grab your hat?” He then showed me that he holds his bino’s up to his head, takes the index finger off his bino’s and grabs the brim of his hat.  So I tried it, and of course, it worked.

It’s something so simple I’d never even thought to do something like it, but what it does is totally anchor your bino’s to your head and gives you a third point of contact that gives you a much steadier picture while you’re glassing.  Even if you sit there right now and hold your hands in front of your eyes as if you were holding bino’s then you would see the movements in your hands (without the bino’s actually there), now grab you hat with you index finger and you’ll see how it works.  Good luck out there this year!