Let me guess, Buckshot made some low-quality, unimaginative insult, probably involving a body part, right? Kids are so cute when they try to act all grown up.

-Blast, who loves that "Ignore" button.

I've used those tacks as well for trailblazing and they work great. A variant of that idea (also available with the hunting supplies at Wal-Mart) are twist ties, like the ones that used to come on a loaf of bread, with a white side and a red side. Both sides are highly reflective. This variant allows you to easily put the marker on a bush or shrub branch that won't take a tack. Also the twisty tie can be made to be visible from many directions of view. They pack flat and are practically weightless.

I agree with you Glock-A-Roo, I have tried one pack of the reflective twist ties and they work well, they also pack flat and do not poke you in your pocket or rattle like tacks (I now keep my tacks in a film container with paper tissue).

It is true that if you get off the trail and are looking for a tack sideways they do not show up well, the twist ties prevent this problem but do not work well on large trees; perhaps a mixture of the 2 types would work best.

Mike

I'm with you there Taurus, I keep an entire roll of that stuff in my kit. All my rolling gear (you know the kit)usually has a strip on it, and whenever I'm headed out on the job, I'll try and roll out the kit for each tool to get a little charge-up...makes my assistants nuts come cleaning time! hehehehe!!!
I also put dummy cords on the serious stuff so I can hook those items off onto myself on a carabiner. Great practice man.
Amazing how ones job practices and ones survival gear practices cross over....

Cheers, One more day and still alive!
Mike

Taurus,

I like the luminous tape idea as well. I tried using chem-lights/light sticks and the frustration was that once they died they were less than useless (trash that has weight). The tape is recharged by natural light and is for more functional.

Now if I only could stick some on my dog so that I wouldn't trip over him in the night...

Thanks for the initial suggestion.

A LOT of my training/ gear choices cross over. That gets me in trouble sometimes on this forum as it is hard to let go of one mindset and change to another. Army vs. civilian (LOL)

For my rolling gear I also carry the issued IR reflective tape for those NIGHT calls that are only supposed to be done during daylight. I didn’t mention it on the post because IR tape really doesn't have much civilian application. Makes the important stuff easy to find when only NVGs are allowed.

Glad to hear all is well. Take care Bro. I will send a PM later.

I hear you BrianTexas. I solved this problem with my dog by buying him a glow in the dark collar (avail at most pet stores)

Exactly right; that's what I do. I keep a mix of tacks & ties in a small container.

I have seen another variation of this idea that I forgot to mention earlier. Instead of a thumbtack shape, it is a small cube with reflective tape on all but 1 surface; that surface has a small tack-like spike on it. These units can be seen in a 180 degree hemisphere (or better) but still require a clear & solid section of wood for placement:


Holy moly, here is a page with all types of reflective trail markers, including some I hadn't seen before!

This thread got me poking around the web for a US source of tape which is both luminous and reflective. Instead, I found a bunch of interesting luminous ropes at:
www.glorope.com
which I could envision using as a safety-strap (loop) for gear, or even a D-I-Y dog collar. They also have high-glow safety sheeting, which is like a cuttable sheet of luminous sticker: 12"x12" is $3.25

Wow, that is a "bright" idea (sorry about that).

I have never tried the cube type trail tacks, they would proabaly work well, I did make some out of round push pins and but because of the circular post they did not reflect as well as normal thumb tacks (less flat reflective area).

It is important to use the tacks that have reflective tape on them, the cheap version that is just painted does not reflect well.

We have hunted in the same area for 11 years now and the problem is that there are many of our old tack trails that lead to areas we no longer go, this is a real problem when trails cross. My hunting partner spent an evening in my treestand this year and walked out by headlamp after dark; he managed to link-up with an old tack-line of mine from 5 years ago and went about 300m off course (although this is my buddy who could get lost in his own living room).

We would remove these old tack-lines but the tacks are very hard to find in the daylight, you really need to look for them after dark with a light.

The only luminous stuff I have worked with is small bottle of fishing jig-head paint that would glow if you charged it up with light. I also have a few firearm sights that glow-in-the-dark, works well on a bear defence shotgun.

Mike