Dry eyes on a hunting trip

Hunting trips are hard on eyes because you sit still for hours in cold, moving air while staring through binoculars or a scope and blinking less than usual. To keep dryness down, shield your face from the wind, rest your eyes between glassing sessions, carry drops in an inside pocket so the bottle stays within its storage range, and clean your hands before using them.

Why sitting still in the cold is so drying

Walking warms you and makes you blink. Sitting in a tree stand or ground blind does neither. Dawn and dusk, when most hunters are settled in, are often the coldest hours, and cold air holds little water. A light breeze crossing a field or ridge keeps replacing the air in front of your face, so tears evaporate steadily for as long as you sit.

A stand puts you higher, where the wind usually runs stronger than at ground level. A blind blocks more of it, but the shooting windows tend to face into the breeze, and that’s exactly where your face is pointed for hours.

Glassing and the blink problem

When you look hard at something, you blink less, and few activities involve looking harder than scanning a tree line through binoculars or holding a scope on one spot. Every blink spreads a fresh layer of tears across the eye, so long stretches of concentrated looking let the surface dry. Hunters often notice it as blurry, tired eyes partway through a morning sit.

• Lower the binoculars every few minutes and blink slowly several times.
• Scan with your naked eye between glassing passes to give your focus a rest.
• Close your eyes for a few seconds when nothing is moving; you can still listen.
• Keep lenses clean so you’re not straining through smudges.

Gear that blocks the wind

• A face mask or gaiter pulled up under your eyes stops your breath fogging glasses and cuts wind on the lower face.
• Clear or lightly tinted shooting glasses give wind protection in low light without hiding much.
• A brimmed cap under the hood shades your eyes from low sun on snow.
• Set a stand or blind so the prevailing wind is at your side, not in your face, when scouting allows it.

Carrying the bottle so it stays usable

The label’s storage line reads Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). A pack hanging on a hook in the stand, a truck left at a trailhead all night, or a camp tent at freezing all fall below that range. The fix is to carry the bottle the way you carry your phone battery in cold weather: in an inside chest pocket against your base layer, where body heat keeps it close to room temperature.

At camp, keep it in the cabin or tent area that stays heated, not beside the woodstove and not in the cooler. If it did get very cold, let it come up to room temperature and look at it first. The label’s “Do not use” line is If this product changes color, and its description of a normal bottle reads: Product appears as a milky brown solution.

Clean hands before drops in the field

Hunting hands touch dirt, bark, field dressing gear, scent cover and fuel. None of that should go near your eyes. Before you use drops:

• Wash with soap and water at camp if you can; in the stand, at least use a clean wipe on your fingers.
• Take gloves off. A glove can’t tell where the tip is, and it’s easy to brush it.
• Get out of the wind, or turn your back to it, before tilting your head.
• Follow the label: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye.
• Don’t let the tip touch your lashes, glove or anything else. The label states: Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination.

Where Quell fits

Quell’s Uses read: For use as a protectant against further irritation or to relieve dryness of the eye. It is designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss, which is the loss a cold breeze speeds up. It comes in a .33 fl oz (10 mL) multi-dose bottle, small enough for a chest pocket. If you hunt with a partner who also uses drops, each person should carry their own bottle rather than share one.

If something gets in your eye

Seeds, bark, dust and twigs are part of moving through cover. Lubricating drops aren’t meant for removing debris, and something stuck in the eye, an eye injury, or anything that hits the eye at speed needs medical attention, not a drop. For ordinary dryness that won’t settle, the label says: Stop use and ask a doctor if you feel eye pain or changes in your vision, if irritation or redness continues, or if the condition worsens or persists for 72 hours.

Before a long trip, read the whole Drug Facts, and if you’ll be gone a while, see keeping spare bottles and traveling with eye drops.