Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Drones used for scouting?

Drones are much better than what you think already. My SonIL has one. It takes a simple Gopro, can fly for 20 minutes or more, go to altitudes I couldn't believe, and has a gps in it. If it loses signal, or is going to run out of "fuel", it returns to the take off spot - on it's own. The range would be quite sufficient to do some genuine scouting.

I say they should be banned everywhere for use in scouting / hunting. Maybe because I have logged too many miles on foot scouting myself.

SC

They're kind of like ATV's. Those who have them love them, everybody else hates them.

Technological progress stops for nothing -- not even your tired old feet

Drones are going to be hard to ban for hunting because the range is getting better all the time and the ability to fly them autonomously using GPS waypoints already exists. For example, your wife could be sitting in the hunting cabin and entering GPS coordinates for the drone to autonomously fly to and record video, and you would be a couple miles away at your favorite hunting spot waiting to get a text message from her asking where the game is. Once the drone arrives back at the hunting cabin and she reviews the video, she texts you the GPS location of the elk herd and voila --- you bagged your trophy thanks to a little robot flyer that only asked for a few cents in electricity to charge up

One of the most popular consumer drones on the market right now is the DJI Phantom 2 Vision and it can fly by itself by navigating pre-programmed GPS waypoints. Stock battery gives it about 25 minutes flight time, and since it can reach max. airspeed of around 30 MPH (assuming no big headwind) --- simple math tells you it can scout up to 12 miles roundtrip.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qajTB3g8TrU

I'd rather get skunked.

Can't use em here in New Mexico, which is just dandy as far as I am concerned... Published today by the NM Wildlife Federation

June 27, 2014


Drone use banned for hunting, scouting or harassment

The use of drones is growing as their price comes down and their technological sophistication rises, but the State Game Commission made it clear Thursday they�re not welcome in New Mexico hunting areas. On a 5-1 vote the Commission banned the use of drones as an aid to hunting, or to harass hunters or wildlife. Commissioner Robert Espinoza of Farmington was the sole dissenting vote. An earlier version of the ban was introduced in May, but NMWF and other sportsmen�s organizations said it didn�t go far enough. That version would have prohibited drone use within 48 hours of a hunt, but allowed drone use while others were hunting. The Commission followed sportsmen�s advice in May and postponed action, and in the meantime NMWF, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and other groups worked with Department staff to develop a stronger, more expansive ban on drone use.

The broader ban had virtually unanimous support, except from Espinoza, who said the 48-hour rule would be enough. �I don�t see it as necessary� to ban all drone use, he said, adding that he didn�t want to burden game wardens with extra work. The rest of the Commission disagreed, and voted in favor of the full ban.

The Commission had initially planned to both introduce and approve the drone ban at its May meeting, but sportsmen urged a one-month delay, saying it would result in a better regulation. The regulation approved Thursday was the result of sportsmen�s input. �This is a perfect example of why New Mexico Wildlife Federation has been so insistent that public participation needs to be part of all decision-making,� said VeneKlasen. �This new drone ban is far better as a result of a one-month delay. Chairman Kienzle should be commended for allowing us extra time to make sure this regulation is the best it can be.�

Razz--

I read that today too. Nice to see NM out in front of the issue instead sitting at the station wondering where the train went. I was a little surprised it wasn't a unanimous vote.

Wonder if the guys illegally using drones to scout are the same guys illegally using ATVs to hunt? Guess the next step will be game officials on ATVs with drones hunting after lawbreakers on ATVs with drones. Maybe a few flat tires and a bit of wing shooting would be in order

Unfortunately, there will be situations where it's impossible for a game warden to track a drone back to it's operator or launch point --- and then just as hard to prove someone was using it to assist in hunting game.

If a hunter's wife is sitting in a cabin a mile away and she's operating the drone, I just can't see a game warden being able to chase the drone in his state-issued pickup truck across a swamp or barbed wire fencing or some other hellish terrain back to the cabin to slap a fine on the wife. The wife could simply say she was flying her drone on a nice day and filming the landscape and the game animals just happened to be in view. She'll walk out of court in a New York minute with the game warden and judge giving each other dumb looks.

Sorry, but more and more people are going to use drones for hunting and a few silly state game laws aint gonna stop a damn thing

Is it legal to make surface to air missiles for shooting down drones?

Called the Colorado DOW today after seeing this post. They confirm that it is illegal to use drones of any kind in the state. The fines are not worth the advantages they may provide. It is a felony. If convicted the user will lose their rights to own weapons of any kind. I assume that would be the end of that persons hunting as well. (using any weapon.)

If a guy needs his wife sitting in a cabin operating a drone to find game for him, he ought to re-evaluate why he's even out there. Plus, he probably needs to grow a set.

I said earlier that it's not illegal to use drones to scout in Idaho. There is an exception:
Aircraft is defined as any powered flight. It doesn't say that a person has to be aboard. The intent is to prevent someone in a plane from radioing the location of game to a hunter to guide them to the animal. I suspect that they would consider using a GPS and video cameras in this manner to be illegal. It's definitely communicating location to persons on the ground via electronics.

So it's a felony in CO simply to use a flying toy to look at game animals from the air --- but 4 poachers using poisoned arrows and night vision goggles to kill game only resulted in deferred sentence?

4 poachers busted for using poisoned arrows

No wonder it's legal to smoke pot in Colorado -- your laws are all topsy-turvy!

I get what you're saying --- but wouldn't this be awfully hard to prove in court?

You'd have to have a game officer peering over your shoulder the exact moment your drone-operating wife sends you a text that gives you the GPS coordinates of where the elk herd is?

Either that, or it'd a be a huge sting operation involving several law enforcment agencies that could arrest multiple people at once in a given area and issue search warrants for phone records to implicate text messages being sent to your smartphone after drone was video-recorded by game wardens in a hunter's general vicinity. Wouldnt this cost many thousands of dollars to setup and execute?

I dunno, man --- I just look at it from a common sense scenario. The only people who are gonna get busted are the guys in full camo caught in the field with a radio transmitter in their right hand hand and a drone in their left. Outside of that, it will be too easy for accomplices to carry out the drone activity some distance away -- and the hunter simply gets a text message on his phone telling him where the animals are located. As far as I know, game officials arent allowed to snoop around in your phone without a warrant.

People who want to use drones for hunting should grow a pair.

As far as "proving something in court," if you have a tag, own a drone, and it's flying where your tag is valid, you're toast. Why else would it be there.

Look, I hate treating some of you like kids in here --- but you just don't understand the immense capabilities of these drones that already exist in 2014.

Right now, for under $1,500 you can buy a drone that can be operated from 2 OR 3 MILES AWAY using legal frequencies and easily obtained transmitter equipment on the Interwebs. The average game official won't even know it's flying overhead during a hunt because it's a small craft 2 feet across that makes a very tiny amt. of noise and it's probably flying at 300-400 feet of altitude. You'd have to be Superman to hear it at that height. The DJI Phantom is all-white which means it's a tiny white speck against a really big white sky. You'd need super eagles eyes to even see it at that height.

Some of you think all drone hunting cases will be solved by some Barney Fife game warden catching some Cletus out in the woods flying his $40 Kmart drone 100 feet away over a couple bushes to spot game. Y'all need to get educated about what these powerful flying machines can do, and how good hunters will become at using them in all kinds of stealthy situations. It will be hard to stop them, trust me.

I get it. New member, never posted here. You're in the drone business.

And just for the record, I don't care about the capabilities of drones in 2014, or 2020.

They have no place in hunting. Except for All Qaeda.

They're here and they'll be used, like it or not. I don't like guys running all over the hills with ATV's, either, but I can't stop them. The game wardens have a very hard time stopping any high tech poacher but if they make them illegal, at least it'll cut down on the number of hunters using them.

You're like the proverbial ostrich that buries it's head in the sand.

Your hunting worldview may have stagnated around 1975, but the world keeps on spinning, and progress can NEVER be stopped.

Many people were saying in the early 1900's "cars are too dangerous and have no place being on the roads where horses belong".

Many people were saying in the 1980's "computers have no place in schools because that's where textbooks and chalkboards belong".

I think you get my point by now.