I was listening to Gun Talk (I think) on the radio the other day and they read a story of young man that shot his first deer and didn't see exactly which direction it headed. They were was unable to blood trail because it rained heavy so they said they used thermal scopes to locate the deer the next morning by it's heat signature.


Has anybody done this and is there an inexpensive hand held thermal that would work for a situation like this?

They do work to an extent. I have used a luepold tracker and found a deer for my nephew but it was a cold morning and there was still frost on the ground. I have also found hogs that I shot at night with a thermal. The issue with using thermals is that once the sun comes up and starts heating up the area, everything shows hot. Expensive thermals maybe better. I don't know.

Thanks for the reply. They did say it was a cool cloudy/rainy day.

It certainly works in slightly open woods when the weather is at least cool. If it is a real thicket, not so much. I leave my Pulsar Axion on white hot and have walked to where I've shot game on a trail or lane, then scanned the general direction the deer or hog ran (especially helpful when there is no visible blood trail), and spotted at least a part of the animal lying 40-50 yards out in the woods. I'd likely have found them after a few minutes of searching without the thermal, but it made for an interesting experiment. I will say that a thermal with a lower base magnification is most useful for this, due to the field of view.

Not legal to use any manner of Night Vision/Thermal for any big game in ND or MT. Not legal for use to find game before it's down, nor after it's down.

We've got a nice selection of refurbished Pulsar Thermals at very attractive prices that come complete and with a with a Pulsar 1 year warranty

How far can a basic Thermal spot a game animal or big predator at night? In open country?

I think with thermals its kind buy cheap and regret it or pony up and pay. I have an agm sidewinder 35-640, I can see heat signature on houses 5-6 miles away. I can spot deer sized animals at 1000 yards or more. I have only had mine for a month or so and am saving up for an AGM varmint scope.

low base magnification is both good and bad. its good for close and FOV, however the zoom on a thermal is digital and not optical. so the image degrades quite a bit when you zoom and maybe essentially unusable at the last 2 zoom powers. with higher base mag, you get a more detailed view from a longer distance. AGM recently released a scope that has dual base magnification. that seems to be the best of both worlds.

Just threw this up to give an idea of what you see through a thermal. This is a 15-384 AGM scanner. I haven't been on this place in the daytime and you just can't estimate range by thermal. But you can definitely see something out there past the obvious black spots (pigs), over by the pond you can see what I believe are deer at about 800? yards. 1.5x base magnification is great for scanning but you will need to get closer to make a shot.

But if you haven't seen a thermal image, here you go.

Thanks for the information on Scanners.

$3,000+ w/tax & shipping-- expensive buggers.

that image is black hot. I think its the one I prefer to use as well. its the best at lighting up the terrain around you. hunting jacks at night would be cool with a thermal on a rifle.

We paid for a night pig hunt out of Van Texas with FHR Outfitters. We sat on a power line for a while and assuming the poles were 200 yards apart we were seeing pigs over 1200 yards away. Randy, the outfitter, had lots of experience and could easily tell they were pigs. It took us a bit longer to determine but it became apparent once they started moving. Scanning fields was the most productive, looking into the timber is not productive, a remote controlled viewer mounted on the roof and displayed on an iPad was handy. It takes some effort to hold up the AR with the scope as a viewer and looking at the screen trashes your night vision. A shout out to all the servicemen on here that have FAR more experience and bless you for your service.

Downside is the thermal doesn't look through windows.

We're headed out tomorrow on a South Dakota ranch to see if we can reduce the porcupine population. I'll be using a Sightmark Wraith Thermal, an entry level thermal.

There are some guys on YouTube that use drones with thermals for tracking, but it's not legal in many states.

I use a thermal quite a bit. As mentioned, open fields and pasture, or pasture with light, scattered trees they work well. Moderate timber not very well.

I've tracked shot pigs at night and will find them, other times, I have to wait until it's light. It doesn't take much to block the thermal view. I couldn't find a downed boar the other night, because the grass was too tall. A simple bush can be enough to hide it too. The next morning, I found him easily in the daylight. Scanning with a thermal can also be disorienting. Especially if it's a moonless night and you're walking around. Between the thermal view killing your night vision (think of looking at a TV set), your flashlight and the pitch black, you get twisted around pretty good.

Be about pointless here in Georgia. Just to thick around here.

I don’t know…

I have my thermal scanner and a night vision scope. The NV uses an IR light and is about worthless in the timber because the IR splash washes out things behind it. I can focus my IR light down to a tiny spot and that helps but then FOV is gone. Several times I have seen pigs with my thermal scanner in the thick creek bottoms that I just couldn’t find with NV.

I will buy a thermal scope eventually but stuff keeps coming up that I seem to want more.

As to spotting game, we see mice running around in the grass, had an armadillo up under some grass that NV couldn’t see nor could a white light. He blended in perfectly but the thermal picked him out real easy. We even picked up dead hogs that we had drug off a few nights before. Figured the sun heated them up I guess.

Thermal is very useful and I’m only using 384 resolution. My buddies have 640 and now they’ve got a 1080 or so out, I can’t imagine anything could hide from that.

A thermal monocular has been extremely useful for me. When they first came out, my wife got me the Leupold LTO Tracker and later the second generation version of that model, which featured better image quality.

I am mobility-challenged and can't traipse around the woods at night looking for a downed hog or coyote. The use of a thermal monocular has made things much easier for me. Even if behind a screen of brush or grass, the thermal picks up enough of a heat signal to tell me where the carcass is. After several years of use, they've never let me down. And, they are small enough to easily fit into a shirt pocket.

No, they don't possess the quality to make positive IDs of smaller animals at longer ranges, but for my purposes, they've worked exceedingly well.

I haven’t but that’s a good idea

Most all the serious competition coon hunters use them to find ( or not find ) coons when their dog trees. Some of these money hunts are in the $50-100k range so finding plus points is a big deal. Most just use the singular monocular though.

Wow.

Had no idea coon hunting could get that serious.

DF

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.

The larger objective helps under a similar theory as a day scope: the larger the objective, more return is allowed to reach your sensor plate for processing. Where it differs is that the pixel pitch of that plate (all else being equal) has as much to do with what gets processed and seen at the eye end. In this case, SMALLER pixel pitch (12um vs 17um) is better, as there are more sensors on the same sized array, if they’re smaller in size. More sensors is a good thing. 12um in a 25mm device often detects and resolves as well or better than a 17um, 35mm device. A 12umx35mm will perform as good or better than a 17umx50mm objective device. It becomes more evident when conditions aren’t ideal: high temps, high humidity, fog, etc. What’s interesting is that until Pulsat started using 12um on some of their 384 devices, they trash talked other makes using the smaller PP ‘as nothing but a way to reduce cost by reducing germanium objective sizes’. While smaller PP can make smaller objectives perform like larger objectives, the truth is that smaller PP just works better.

I look through my scanner with my left eye to keep my right (dominant) eye free from the night blindness.

^^^^….that’d just mean I’d burn out both eyes, because I’m on the scope a lot, too. My dominant eye just stays shaded. My off eye is for walking. Same way we used to used PVS-14s when they were issued.

I thought that they were not Allowed in most states, they would fall under the category of Electronic Device?

I think on private property you can do what you want in parts of Alabama, no warden is going to bust you for shooting coyotes at night that are after your livestock anytime day or night you shoot them.

Again: In AL there’s a permit/season for it. $15 added to your license.

Yes,

My AGM Taipan 15-384 has just about retired my Leica's.

Amazing what you can spot/observe that one could/would never using any traditional alpha glass. Nothing that radiates a temperature above ambient and is not behind solid objects can hide. I don't recommend it but even looking into direct sun, morning or eve works with thermal.

ya!

GWB

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