The other night I had to trail the spike I shot in the dark and realized that I need a much better light for night blood-trailing.

A buddy of mine had a huge hand held spotlight that worked great but only lasted about 30 minutes. Someone suggested that a flourescent lantern works really well for blood trailing. Does anyone use a lantern for bloodtrailing?

Can you suggest a good lantern or spotlight?

If you look in houndsmen's catalogs, you can find some great headlamps that come with battery packs that will give you power for many hours. You don't need 500,000 or more candlepower, to follow a bloodtrail. Lanterns tend to illuminte too much of an area and can help push a wounded deer even further, if it's still alive! Plus it will also help to spook all the other game in that area. Small lights pointed at the ground help in keeping your concentration at restricted areas of ground, where you'll be better able to pick up even minute traces of blood. Spotlights work well for simply locating the dead deer from a distance, so we always bring one along, just to scan ahead on occasion, but as you stated, they don't last long, so are best used just for short bursts. -Jim

Streamlight Ultra Stinger 70,000 Lumens. Works very well. You can get them so you can charge at home and vehicle. Will shine an honest 100+ yards with a fairly narrow light pattern. I have one and love it. $100 or so. Search the internet. I paid that with shipping from www.impactguns.com

I've also seen in the Cabela's and Bass Pro catalogs that they have a game tracker light. It shines a UV light at the ground and illuminates the blood trail - one of them even beeps when it sees blood. I don't remember the name, but they were pretty expensive - $200+ I think. If I see it any time soon I'll post it here.

if you get one of those little lights like the hy-intensity ones that go on a key chain or zipper in RED they make blood glow crimson. Try one once it really works!!

I like the little head lights that miners will use. I have one that has the red light, and dimmer light and then a very bright light. It's awesome. You can have things in your hands and with this around your head it's unbelieveable. I love it!

I've only had to trail in the dark a couple of times. On those occasions we used a gas powered lantern. I prefer it over a flashlight. I do have one of the LED headlamps but have not had to use it for that since I got it. If I do have to track at night I think it will work very well. If not I always have my lantern.

I prefer the lantern, helps the blood show up really well.