I absolutely love wearing contacts. I have been using monovision lenses for years.  Even though most people have two eyes that work together like binoculars, one eye is usually dominant over the other. When looking at faraway objects, the dominant eye is the one that is actually seeing more.  Here are some points to take into consideration:

1. If you wear monovision contacts, establish which eye is your dominant eye.  Discuss this with your optometrist to make sure you are using your dominant eye for distance. After struggling to see distance when hunting, It became apparent that my prescription had my reading lens in my shooting eye!  Looking back, I am amazed at how well I hunted turkeys and deer with that disadvantage.
2. If you hunt birds, you may have some additional issues with depth perception with monovision lenses.  Talk to your eye doctor to see if there is a way to work through this when hunting birds possibly with another set of contacts specifically to help with this problem.   However,  if you are making a change in your lens correction, it takes several days of wearing the new contacts to get your brain to adjust so you need to consider that before you change up your correction to hunt birds. I have improved wing shooting since I stopped wearing monovision contacts when hunting.  I wear my distance lenses in both eyes and the depth perception issue is not a problem- so I can’t use that as an excuse anymore! (I now wear only distance lenses whenever hunting)
3. When getting ready to hunt, avoid the eye area as much as possible with sunscreen, moisturizers, or anything that can migrate onto your lenses and cloud your vision.  It is near impossible to change out your lenses while in a deer stand or turkey blind.
4. If you are using a Thermacell, be mindful of the smoke and heat drying out your eyes.
5. Remember to stay hydrated!  Make sure you drink more water in colder months as most of us tend to drink less water when it gets cold.
6. Take a break from your contacts as often as possible in your daily use and switch to using your glasses.   Contacts tend to dry out your eyes so give them a break.
7. If you don’t typically wear disposable contacts, I would have some on hand when you hunt.  It is so much easier if you go on a hunting trip not to have to worry about cleaning and storing your contacts
8. Have a backup plan.  Just in case you have an issue with your contact lenses while hunting, have a spare pair of glasses in your backpack so you can continue hunting.
9. A full hunting day starts before daybreak and ends after dark. You might consider giving your eyes a break mid-day by wearing your glasses and changing out the contacts for your afternoon hunt.
10. Autumn breezes bring with it lots of pollen that sticks to your contacts.  Bring along some drops specifically for contact lenses wearers to refresh your eyes.eau
    

    Maggie Boineau, Prois Staffer

If you have any ideas on how to improve your hunting when using contact lenses, please share!