Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Anybody use thermals for finding game?

Interesting on the coon hunting. I know a decent 640res scanner can allow you to pretty easily tell a coon from a rabbit at 200-250yds. A 384res of the same magnification is more like 150-175yds.

For big game hunters that want help with spotting a downed animal but might also hunt hogs or coyotes on occasion, a guy can now buy a new scanner in the $1500 neighborhood that will get you in the game. This will be current 384res stuff that can typically tell a deer from a hog out to 250yds without much issue. Pretty impressive piece of hardware for that kind of money, in my opinion. 640res is nice, but often not really necessary for what many of us do with a thermal. Much like a $250 3-9x40 scope vs a $400 version for a typical deer rifle. 95% of the time, the basic $250 will get you there.

You would be surprised. Where night vision can't see through brush, thermals can. I have spotted down hogs in the swamps of south GA.

This is a very interesting thread for me. I am ignorant about the capabilities of thermal imaging. Like many men I have red/green color deficiency that, in my case, makes it impossible for me to follow a blood trail. I read somewhere a week or so ago that one of these devices will pick up the fresh, warm blood. As most deer shot on my place occurs near last light, this could be helpful to me if it worked.

The only thing I would use one of these for is to pick up the blood trail and locate the downed deer. Is this really possible? How much would I need to spend without buying more capability than I need?

You can get a 256res AGM Taipan these days for about $550. To bump up to budget-ish 384res is about double in price. Some would say that you might find yourself using the scanner for other chores than bloodtrailing, in which case the extra $500-600 may be money well spent. If not, the $550 unit is still pretty capable at closer distances. I tend to use my scanner during deer season a fair bit on morning hunts before daylight, as it lets me locate bedded and moving deer to be watching for when shooting light arrives.

$550 Thermal Review:

Thank you! All of that was very helpful!

Here's the state by state breakdown as of May 2023:

Thermal and Night Vision state by state

My good friend has this one, https://cameralandny.com/shop/pulsa...0e196?variation=3555472&query=refurb

We used it from camp in GA spotting hogs in farmers field, simply amazing! You can distinguish from hog/deer/opossum quite easily. They use it to spot hogs then stalk and shoot. He uses it in the stand, looking for deer in the dark before he gets down, if deer are close, he waits til they wander off, not to spook them. An amazing piece of equipment.

The numbers I look for are a 384 or higher resolution, a 12 micron or less sensor and a 50 hertz or more refresh rate.
Then look at base magnification and objective lense diameter.

I have used them at night when trailing a deer that had been shot... from my experience, they work great for that...

Hey Dirt-

You got some big $ boys in La. in the coonhound biz. I'm just a pleasure hunter. Don't like the "modern" babblers, etc.............. Big Money Competition has brought out all the ways to cheat, lie, etc................Just like everything else. The thermal's are really good for accuracy. So many guys think they have the real deal when thermals will expose the truth. For example slick treeing, etc.......

always nice to read more about thermals i do have a cheaper one i play with some. thanks for all the posts,Pete53

So, just some thoughts:

I use thermals year-round in both fields AND woods. Thick cover diminishes their performance, SOME….but not nearly as much as many think. You do have to be more patient on scanning, change angles more, look for holes and animal ‘parts’, etc. the wetter and more leafy the foliage, the worse it is.

The link to the thermal use laws is very lacking: AL (at least) does not allow possession of any NV device while hunting ANY game animal not listed on the night-specific season, which also closes for the full, long deer season. No matter how useful for recovery, our G&F is still far too restrictive about their use. I suspect there are caveats in many states.

As has been mentioned, a 25+ mm objective, 50plus mhz refresh, 12 um pp, 384 device will do just about anything 75+% of hunters would ever need. Stepping to 640 is a sure fire ‘wow’, but doesn’t get you any more critters on the ground or even located (under most conditions). 640 gains you more usefulness in adverse conditions, as do larger objectives and smaller pixel pitch. 640 gives you some range under digital magnification with better detail than the 384. I’m interested to try the RIX stuff with mechanical zoom. Clip on stuff can gain range vs detail, also.

I have a pair of Pulsar thermal binoculars. They are expensive and awesome.

https://www.scheels.com/p/pulsar-me..._content=Non-Branded_DSA_Product%20Pages

I’m sure they are. I try to keep the night vision in at least one eye while night hunting. I tend to walk a lot. If I burn out both eyes it’s a stumble, bumble festival. LOL

Yeah I’ve got red lenses on a couple of small lights cause sometimes you just gotta see what you’re doing.

I walk a lot too and after scanning or looking through my NV scope, I close my right eye and slowly walk until my night vision is somewhat restored.

I need to try that fusion color and see if it’s any easier on the eye.

Excellent post. We often kill rats in tall grass that would be much more difficult to spot with NV. Also believe high base magnification is overrated for at least 75% of thermal users. At base 2.1x I have no trouble ID-ing and killing rats at 35 yds. Could probably do it at 50 yds, but the CCI Quiet seg trajectory and vertical dispersion preclude that.

FOV is very, very nice to have. Have no trouble using a 10-14x magnified optic to kill stuff identified with my eyes. My eyes can't detect squat at night. A high mag/low FOV thermal screams for a separate thermal scanner. Realize that in some circumstances this is necessary for safety. But not for rats or coyotes around here.

I have been looking to buy yet another thermal. What is the advantage of the larger objective when it comes to thermals? What does getting a 35mm get you that a 25mm doesn't?

I've had a monocular scanner and then changed to the bino's. I know exactly what your talking about with the fumbling/bumbling when you kill the night vision of one eye. What's interesting is I actually find the bino's to be less disorienting. With the Pulsar Bino's, I use the red monochrome for scanning, keeping it as dim as possible and it causes much less vision disruption. I also find I can see things much quicker with better ID with the bino's. Even though they're really just the same image with a screen for both eyes, my brain interprets things much better by both eyes seeing the image.

Same. LOL

Used them to find lots of animals. Hunt at night one night per weekend usually.

This year I got an iRay FH35R V2 for my handheld and holy sh*t that thing is awesome. Prices are coming down too. Its a seriously impressive piece of technology. So much so that I also got an iRay Rico RH50 Pro that has optical magnification, full 640 thermal res at 1.5x and 3x. It is nothing short of amazing in thick woods and open fields in South AL and South GA.