As all you bowhunters get ready for the fall whitetail season --- I have an interesting question to ask you: How much would you pay to have a drone scout your fields?
I realize the younger fellas have the fresh legs and energy to scout all their fields, and the older guys just drive the pickup trucks off the road to glass their hunting areas --- but what about those back fields that are hard to reach by truck or those fields that are technically "No Trespassing" but you manage to snag a buck in one when nobody is looking?
I used my DJI Phantom 3 drone to scout some fields for a couple friends of mine last year and I did it for free, but it got me thinking about starting a little side business. So how much would you be willing to pay to have someone like me stand next to you while you watch a 40-inch TV screen that shows live video from the drone, and therefore can direct me to fly over any particular area you want. My drone is able to fly out about 2 miles (depending on hills and other obstacles) so I can cover a lot of real estate on one battery, which last about 15 minutes of total flight time. All video would be recorded in 4K resolution that you could watch at home on your big screen TV.
I was thinking of about charging $100 for a 30-minute session --- that would involve using two batteries and continuous flying to cover the most ground. The camera footage is good enough to spot deer from around 200 ft. altitude, but in order to see antlers I would need to descend to around 100 ft. altitude off the ground and this will likely spook the animals and they run away. Still, it does give you a better idea of which fields have deer and which do not.
GFY
