The walk from my gate to the ladder stand takes fifteen minutes in the dark, and I made that walk with my dad's old flashlight in my hand for years. It is a good light. It is also a thing you have to hold, so one hand is gone the whole way in. I bought the LHKNL rechargeable headlamp in October 2024 and I have worn it on that walk for two seasons now. The pack comes with two lamps, and that two-pack is the reason a red light on your head earns a permanent spot in a hunting bag instead of riding in a drawer.
Here is what a red light will and will not do. It will not make you invisible to a deer, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something. It will keep your own eyes from going blind every time you look down at your feet, and it leaves both hands free while you do it. The red is for walking, for the ramp and for knots after dark. It is never for hunting at night, and it is never a reason to be out past legal shooting hours. Check your own state's rules before you go.
One hand free and both eyes still adjusted when you reach the stand
The two-pack is what I bought: one lamp for the pack, one that lives in the truck. Lights, bands and charging cables come in the box.
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Your eyes take a long while to go full dark, and one white light in your own face throws all of it away. On red, or on the low white setting, I can look at the roots in front of me and still see the treeline when I look back up. That is the whole benefit. It does not make me invisible to a deer. It just means I am not standing at the gate afterward waiting on my eyes to come back to me.
The lamp head pivots 60 degrees so the beam lands where you trip
The lamp head tilts through 60 degrees on its mount. Tilted down, the light sits on the wet leaves and the roots, which is where I actually put a foot wrong. Tilted up, it reaches the rungs of the ladder. I set it once at the gate and it holds through the whole walk. My dad's flashlight did one thing, straight ahead, and I spent fifteen minutes pointing it at my own boots and losing the trail every time the ground changed.
Both hands free at the ramp and on the water
Launching the jon boat before daylight is a two-hand job even in good weather. Hold the bow line, find the cleat, get the plug in. A light in your teeth works right up until it does not. With the lamp on my head I have both hands for the trailer and the rope, and I am not doing the thing where you clamp a flashlight under your chin. Same story on Lake Barkley after dark, when a tangle in the line wants two hands and a light at the same time.
At 1.87 ounces you forget you have it on
The LHKNL lamp weighs 1.87 ounces. I have worn it over a cap, under a hood and with a safety harness on, and I have not once thought about it being there. That sounds like a small thing until you have owned a light that pulls on your forehead, because a light you notice is a light you take off halfway in. In twenty years of running a taxidermy shop I learned to judge how a thing is put together, and light is what you want in something that sits on your head for an hour.
The adjustable band goes over a knit cap in cold weather
The headband adjusts, and from November on I have a knit cap on for every walk in. The band goes over it without pinching and stays where I set it. It also means the lamp sits a little higher than it would on a bare head, which is why the pivot matters, because a fixed head would be shining into the treetops. Nothing about the band is fancy. It is a band, and it holds, and that is the end of what I need from it.
Charges by USB-C on the kitchen counter
The 1500mAh battery is built in and it charges off a USB-C cable, and there are two of those cables in the box. Mine lives on the kitchen counter by the outlet and goes on the cable when I come in. It will run while it is charging, which has saved me once when I did not check it before a morning. I am not going to quote you run times, because cold weather changes the answer and I would rather tell you to charge it than tell you a number.
Hold the mode button three seconds and it is off, no cycling
This is the detail I did not know I wanted until I had it. On most lights you press through every setting to get back to off. On this one you hold the mode button about three seconds and it goes dark from wherever it was, red or white or anything between. At five in the morning in a bean field, that is the difference between a light that is off and a light that is still announcing itself to the whole back forty while you fiddle with it.
Two lamps in the pack, so one lives in the truck
It comes as a two-pack with two bands and two cables. One LHKNL is mine and rides in my pack. The second stays in the truck as the spare, and it has stayed there. Ray does not use it, since he does not hunt or fish and mostly rides along on road trips, but I like knowing it is in the glove box. A spare light you never touch is cheap insurance against a dead battery on a morning you drove twenty minutes to get to.
Water resistant enough for fog, rain and a wet hand
It is rated water resistant, and I will say plainly that means water resistant and not waterproof. I have had it out in fog, in a steady cold rain, and I have handled it with wet hands at the ramp more than once. It has kept working. I would not drop it in the creek to test the claim, and I would not tell you it is submersible, because it is not, and because nobody needs a light that swims. They need one that survives the weather you go out in.
1200 lumens of white when you need to see, red when you do not
The white side is rated 1200 lumens, and that is the setting for the truck bed, the trailer latch and the business end of a deer once it is on the ground. The red side is for the walk in, for the boat before daylight and for a knot after dark. Having both on one head is the reason this thing replaced a handheld for me. Two lights in one, on your head, where your hands are not.
Fifteen minutes of walking in the dark with both hands free, and the beam was still on the low setting when I climbed into the stand.
What I'd Skip
I would skip any light that is red only. The red is for the walk and the ramp, but you still need white to find a dropped glove in the leaves or to see what you are doing once the work starts, and a red-only lamp leaves you standing there squinting. I would skip the ones with a battery pack strapped to the back of your head, because that is weight you feel for an hour. And I would skip the idea that a red light lets you slip in on a deer at twenty yards. It does not. It saves your night vision and keeps your hands free, and that is a fair trade without the fairy tale attached.
Buy the light for the walk, not for a story about the walk
Two lamps, two bands, two USB-C cables and one manual in the pack. Mine has been in the pack for two seasons and the spare is still in the truck.
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