Thermal imager hunt and cull video, fair chase or not?

[Foxyboy43]

Hmmm. Having only recently made for me what is a giant leap into NV (i.e. Pard 007a) I was quite pleased when earlier this week a pal offered me the loan of his thermal spotter to help deal with a particularly wary troublesome fox. I have been out two nights, the first more or less feeling my way (if you see what I mean) and the second (last night) putting it to some practical use.
From the outset on the first night I was stunned by how much I could see with it on what was unfamiliar territory, there is no doubt you will detect far, far more animals than with the traditional lamp and importantly alert far fewer too. After only a few moments acclimatising I was able to see many animals great and small - ranging from cattle down to rats and at pretty amazing ranges. The highlight was definitely a woodcock which I walked in on and was able to see what looked like “tracer” shooting out of it’s rear end as it took to the air - quite amazing. The flip side was seeing and stalking into a few rabbits with it which upon closer examination mysteriously morphed into cowpats - all part of my steep learning curve! However I was impressed.
Last nite was business. A fox had been thwarting me for a while and as it is regularly passing a lady farmer’s hens and guineas it had to go. So rifle rigged with Pard and thermal to hand I walked into the first field and panned round. Again quite incredible how much I could see. Rabbits (real ones), badgers, woodcock and roosting pigeons all came my way before finally I saw an indistinct shape moving in a familiar way three fields away. Frustratingly it ignored my calls and kept moving away at an angle. Knowing the ground I reckoned I could intercept it if I rushed up the hill and got to a distant gate (hedges are thick and twenty feet high), so off I went. Very long story short(ish) the cunning plan worked a dream and the fox came though another gate - either to my first squeak or more likely it was simply going that way. Fortunately I had the rifle on the quad sticks ready to go and it was simply a matter of pocketing the Thermal, switching on the Pard and IR and a simple chest shot at perhaps 80+ yards. Job done - happy chappy!
In summary, based on a pretty limited testing, for fox work the thermal was an absolute boon, it worked faultlessly, enabled me to see things I would never have seen with ordinary NV and or traditional lamp including of course the fox which I would probably not have seen initially at all and all without causing any alarm to man or beast. It would clearly be a marked improvement on more traditional spotting as no torch beam can be seen sweeping the fields at silly o’clock. For me the sheer number of creatures I could see at silly distances was the greatest selling point.
Sooo, would I buy one? Based on my particular shooting needs where I have no deer locally and do most of my fox shooting in daylight - probably not. However, and speaking as one who lives for the thrill of the stalk, for someone at the other end of the deer/fox culling spectrum where “fair chase” is not a consideration I would thoroughly recommend one.

 

[John Gryphon]

Nice little report FB43

And there are those that are using Pard devices on Sambar deer here in Victoria,its too hard to get results in the daytime.....good onya!

 

[Taff]

Is it fair ? Depends if you are a hunter or culler.

 

[slider]

People shoot deer for all sorts of reasons. Is using a thermal to find deercany less "fair" than sitting in a high seat in a well used ride while wrapped in thermal clothing and listening to the latest pod cast?

For clarity, I do both, out of necessity but don't enjoy the latter

 

[lambic]

People shoot deer for all sorts of reasons. Is using a thermal to find deercany less "fair" than sitting in a high seat in a well used ride while wrapped in thermal clothing and listening to the latest pod cast?

For clarity, I do both, out of necessity but don't enjoy the latter

Both of them are not proper stalking

 

[slider]

Both of them are not proper stalking

But they are proper and necessary forms of deer management

 

[lambic]

But they are proper and necessary forms of deer management

That is true

 

[Heym SR20]

Thermals will be the death of deer stalking as we know it. There are many stalkers out with thermal and night shooting that will pretty shoot all the deer in their area.

This leaves a hole for the neighbouring deer, so they just migrate in.

Add in significant money being paid for each deer shot.

Do this for a couple more seasons and there will be very few deer to shoot.

All the contractors will no longer find economic, sporting estates will fail and stalkers no longer employed.

Just look at what we have done to our coastal waters. Over the last 20 to 30 years we have pretty much decimated our wild fish stocks.

I don’t like thermals and frankly I am surprised that they can easily be bought. Its only a matter of time before they get in the wrong hands and then …….

 

[Heym SR20]

Maybe deer will evolve to be cold blooded.

Said in jest naturally.

Im not sure your argument matters given the aim is ‘management’ rather than extermination or survival of the human species by eating as many deer as possible.

Thermal could allow someone to over shoot deer, but it doesnt have to. Cull plans and numbers should stay the same, surely? All things being equal though, the Scottish government does want deer exterminated!

The Scottish Government wants Scotland to be independent, wants to have government appointed guardians for all children and voted yesterday to children to undergo gender transfer surgery. Just because the Scottish Government wants it, doesn’t mean that it is correct.

 

[Dan Newcombe]

Thermals are awesome for the job - night shooting is often a necessity and neither will long term damage deer stalking.

For recreational stalkers / lease holders I’d think the more concerning aspect is that forestry companies seem to be changing approach and recognising that a £1,500 lease fee where no one stalks regularly is a false economy and it’s cheaper to pay someone to protect the trees (with thermal and night shooting on included)

 

[Mick9abf]

Thermals will be the death of deer stalking as we know it. There are many stalkers out with thermal and night shooting that will pretty shoot all the deer in their area.

This leaves a hole for the neighbouring deer, so they just migrate in.

Add in significant money being paid for each deer shot.

Do this for a couple more seasons and there will be very few deer to shoot.

All the contractors will no longer find economic, sporting estates will fail and stalkers no longer employed.

Bearing in mind that affordable thermal has been on the market for a decent amount of time I doubt it will make much difference to what goes on, or numbers present now.

Even giving every recreational stalker one wouldn’t make that much difference. It goes back to what sort of lease it is however and Forestry leases are there to protect their business.

Sure deer will move into the vacuum but not that many realistically if the neighbouring ground is on top of numbers.

The bonus is that quality of deer should technically get better. There’s plenty ‘deer forests’ where they could actually do with reducing or even halving the number of deer to improve quality and reduce browsing pressure but they don’t and everyone can have an opinion on why but the reality doesn’t fit.

It’s all a bit contradictory in the stalking world and one size doesn’t fit all but it seems absurd that stalkers are against deer control in some or certain areas (where it might impact them) but happy to take forestry leases and not do what the owner wants much as it may be unpalatable to some.

 

[Dan Newcombe]

I quite enjoy the massive spread of the use of management on here.

Management can be anything, you are still managing deer as per prescribed aims if you are shooting them out of areas in the same way as you are managing them if you come to Deeside 3 times a year from England during the summer (which, suspiciously seems a regular pattern).

So although one persons idea of management may be different to another’s - it’s not necessarily wrong.

Even local recreational stalkers are hard to motivate to kill deer a lot of the time (in my professional experience)

Overall - the biggest threat to recreations stalking is not thermal, or lightforce or even OOS - it’s recreational stalkers

 

[NullMac]

They don’t act as a deer radar

That's the dog's job

 

[NullMac]

I don’t like thermals and frankly I am surprised that they can easily be bought. Its only a matter of time before they get in the wrong hands and then …….

There was nightvision long before thermal. The first night vision I had was an old British Army starlight scope confiscated off poachers by the police over 25 years ago. This is nothing new, it's just a bit cheaper.

Thermal may be a game changer for people who can't spot deer but it ain't going to improve their stalking or shooting skills. If they walk about with a thermal glued to their eye then they will not be seeing the other things that differentiate the good stalker from the newbie. They will not progress from wandering about blindly, to turning up undetected at the spot where the deer will be.

Stalking is about a lot more than wandering about like an idiot hoping to bump into deer on the off chance.