Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Drones Rather Than Spotting Scopes

Tennessee has already banned this exact practice

I don't consider a cell service capable trail camera to be too much different.

But if they are legal in your state that makes it all good I guess. Personally I just go hunting, don't need to kill the biggest animal in the woods at all costs.

My personal approach is that to be interesting, sport hunting must involve some form of challenge and using all the technology available would turn hunting into an unnatural, boring act.

Not that I need to run naked with a spear in my had but I feel like we need to draw the line somewhere.

With hunting so much under scrutiny these days I feel like using drones is the sort of thing that does not help strengthen our position.

Not even remotely the same. By your logic the drone is the same as a scope or binoculars. Except the fact that with optics you can only see the area you walked or drove your ass too of course terrain dependent. With the drone depending on battery life you can cover countless miles of hills from one spot, totally runs afoul of fair chase principles.

I think people can identify somewhat with game animals and are more inclined to want to “play fair” with them. Fish, not so much.

I think drones are great tools for some things, but the potential for abuse is considerable particularly as regards privacy. Never saw one buzzing around my digs, but suspect a dose of Less-Lethal plastic buckshot might be a good way to handle it without endangering anyone. There might even be some of that lying around here somewhere, maybe.

Ignoring law, ethics are largely personal. And traditional.
Just read stuff on this site.

Otherwise good guys are ready to fight over some stupid hunting method
or another. All because they only know what's common in their area.
And judge everything through what they know.


Personally, and in theory only,
I don't like the idea of using a drone
to locate game.

Would have no issue using one after the shot, to find down or wounded game.
Chasing a wounded animal with one would be despicable.

Using one to look at animals first located by eyeball?
In season? Out?
Scouting or just observing?
Trying to acclimate them to it for later exploitation? Hell no!


Moving away from theory, into the real world?
No. Allowing them in any way would allow abuse.

In Pa?
When our annual game law book has ads for drones, legality will
be within 3 years. When I saw ads for inlines I wondered "WTF, we
can't use them in blackpowder, and no one will buy one to rifle hunt".

Within 2 years we had a season for them.

When I saw ads for crossbows, "Hmmm, The fix is in. Money has been
payed. They are coming". And within 2 years, legal. Across the board.

I actually don't care what someone else does so long as it isn't on my property.

I was watching an episode of Wicked Tuna and one of the crews used an airplane to spot schools with and then directed them to it. Kinda cheating but legal. I have used a drone to take aerial photos and videos of my hunting property but I couldn’t imagine using it on an actual hunt. At what point do we say enough is enough with technology?

Yes. First and foremost a competent drone pilot could find, flush, and "drive" a target animal right to themselves.

Take away the above and my answer and look at it from a pure "optical" perspective and yes, IMO, it's still unethical.

I live in some of the flattest country in all of the USA. A harvested wheat or soybean field from the road "looks" pancake flat. That said, there are folds, ditches, and just enough natural topography that animals learn to hide where they cannot be seen from horizontal viewing angles even with an absence of cover like CRP, woods, tree-rows, or cattail sloughs which make up the bulk of our game's habitat. Corn harvest, deer rut, and our deer gun season typically all run at the same time in mid-late Nov. Corn stubble prior to being flailed or disced down can hide a lot of deer from a horizontal angle, but, from vertical, nearly every deer would be visible. Elevated stands/blinds help a bit, but nothing like "A view from the Top" looking essentially straight down onto a landscape.

Lastly, we go back to my 1st statement regarding the ability to drive game with the drone and discuss how that potentially effects private land boundaries and driving game OUT of a parcel you don't own onto a parcel you own or have the ability to hunt. If someone get's caught driving say bighorn sheep, mountain goats, or wolves out of YellowStone, Glacier, or any other number of National Parks out onto public/private ground where they CAN hunt, there'll be a public backlash the likes of which hunters have never seen.

Logical and good answer.

It can't get worse than it is now. The anti's use any and everything to stop us. Doing what you posted would be no more than one more thing for them.

New drone rules by our Gbmint say you cant fly a drone more than 400' above where it takes off from and you MUST be able to maintain sight of it at all times.
So its a moot point f you are following the law..
YMMV

I hadn't thought about people using them to drive game. I reckon down here in the south the dog hunters would find that highly unethical.

Those are some interesting thoughts. You know, a lot of fish and game departments are looking for ways to draw new hunters into the mix. As you have identified, we have seen quite a bit of technological "creep." Back in the day, it was traditional muzzle loaders only. Then they allowed in-lines. Then they allowed crack barrel single shots in certain calibers. I'd never use a drone in the place of a spotting scope, but when I try to articulate just why, I come up short. It crosses a line I cannot define. I guess that's the way it works with values and beliefs.

I think you are being sarcastic.

Even though you are right.

The guys whose dogs drive deer of posted property towards their guns
would be pissed to find "some SOB using a drone to drive deer".

And that illustrates my above post.

Flint vs percussion vs inline vs smokeless frontloader.

Longbow vs recurve vs compound vs crossbow.
Ironic that crossbow Is older than compound.

I laugh at archers especially.
Guys at work, dropping $1500+ annually in a rapidly depreciating tool.
"Gotta buy the fastest/bestest bow" outfit it with the latest sights, silencers,
whatever arrow gives the newest advantage, cutting edge broadheads....
In pursuit of their traditional primitive sport.

Whatever floats the boat.

Untill they start on crossbows!

Then, I can't keep my mouth shut.
The hypocrisy is unreal .
And I point that out.

(No, I don't use a crossbow)

This is like the CB.

We are walking on each other.
My last post was in response to your earlier one

You can't control a dog's path nor how a dog trails or runs game with a remote. A talented drone pilot could make a deer dance a jig.

That's a good response. As soon as someone sues the word "should" they become like the government and step on other folk's toes.

Other states have too.

Depends on where and what I’m doing.

For CA I might use a drone for scouting deer, as there is usually very few of them around. But probably not for hunting in CA or other states with better deer,elk, or moose populations.