Digital Scopes and Thermal for Deer Stalking

[Norfolk Deer Search]

I appreciate we are talking mainly about scopes, but those who disagree with their use - do you disagree with thermal spotters as well?

I’ve got one, I’ve hated it since the day I got it, @devon deer stalker will tell you at the time I was hanging out not to get one, yes I have used it of course I have, but I still hate it!

I now use it for spotting deer when not with a rifle

 

[Sheamus]

Digital nv, thermal scope or spotter or good ole binoculars or a glass scope .

Doesnt matter what you use ..if you see it you can shoot it ...or not ...you can see it and make a call to walk away an other day....
How many of us have dropped a beast at last light and hours later in total darkness head torch batteries on 2nd set, nearly broken your ankles 4x and have you thought
" wtf did I pull trigger on that for !?"

Paul.

You know what Paul? I've lost count of the times that ive found myself hours after sunset tidying up the mess.
Standing in the shower at midnight muttering to myself out loud "never again never again "...
I'm at the point of validation where I can actually describe myself as a silly old 8astard.
That was before I even purchased a digital scope..

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

You know what Paul? I've lost count of the times that ive found myself hours after sunset tidying up the mess.
Standing in the shower at midnight muttering to myself out loud "never again never again "...
I'm at the point of validation where I can actually describe myself as a silly old 8astard.
That was before I even purchased a digital scope..

I’ve said the those famous last words more than once the last what when I rolled over 8 lowland red hinds over in a field of sugar beet 5 minutes turned into 5 hours of hard graft FFS back then I was getting £2.80/kg so a well paid 5 hours but I was chuntering the queens best English to myself all the way through.

I remember walking out into the field after pulling the trigger said these exact words

“FFS NDS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!”

Been in that situation several times since but stopped after 2, lost the drive so kill after that.

Didn’t need thermal or digital back then, don’t need it now.

 

[Sheamus]

I’ve said the those famous last words more than once the last what when I rolled over 8 lowland red hinds over in a field of sugar beet 5 minutes turned into 5 hours of hard graft FFS back then I was getting £2.80/kg so a well paid 5 hours but I was chuntering the queens best English to myself all the way through.

I remember walking out into the field after pulling the trigger said these exact words

“FFS NDS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!”

Been in that situation several times since but stopped after 2, lost the drive so kill after that.

Didn’t need thermal or digital back then, don’t need it now.

I've got a quantity of the same t-shirt brother. But there all looking quite a bit thread bare these days..
They were good times for me too back in the day @£3.20 per kilo
Kind of makes sense now all the midnight mutterings in shower for £1.20 per kilo... Keep staking them up

 

[Pellet Pinger]

I am with @Norfolk Deer Search. If you can’t find shootable deer with the naked eye, or a decent pair of binoculars you are either

1) blind
2) lacking the skills and knowledge to find deer
3) too impatient to find deer

If its too dark to see a deer with good glass its too dark to take a safe shot.

A tad judgemental and bordering snobbery i’d say.
First thing you have failed to acknowledge is everybody’s land, population, landowners requirements, attitude, abilty, time, budget ect is different, not everyone lives in the utopian world you speak of!
If you came armed with only a glass scope at the tree plantation i shoot you would either get bored or binned off because you wouldn’t see any deer through your scope or binos let alone shoot one.
Busy with workforce and machinery by day and dog walkers in the evening the only chance you will have to nail a deer is in the last few minutes of legal light, thats if they decide to come out that early. I watch from a vantage point and see them slip in
through the thermal and its as if they have an inbuilt clock, no amount of field craft will help in that situation.
Likewise the estate i shoot, my brief is to shoot every muntjac i see and keep the roe in check therefore i need to be as efficient as possible, i’m not just out for a wander to appreciate the wildlife of an evening. A digital scope helps shooting in dense woodland as the usable light is reduced even further under the canopy.

Regarding your comment “If its too dark to see a deer with good glass its too dark to take a safe shot” im afraid thats absolute nonsense and smacks of someone thats never used a digital for stalking, in the dying few minutes of a light on a clear evening a decent digital scope will allow you to ID, sex a deer and more importantly see way beyond it to determine a safe backstop, dog walkers etc.
Take a look at the images below in the last few minutes of legal light you can clearly see the sex of this pair and the barn owl on the post! the last photo you can see the telegraph pole and the wires, its 400yds away, tell us why with that level of detail shooting with a digital scope isn’t safe at last knockings? have you ever looked through an Alpex in low light before?
Whats the difference between shooting a deer in the last moments of useable light with a glass scope and 15/20mins later with a digital? i’ll tell you, 15/20 mins thats all because if you get a runner you will still be tracking it in the dark, you’ll still be gralloching it in the dark and you’ll still be hauling it back to transport in the dark with either scope.

Nothing wrong with being a purist but it doesn’t give you grounds to patronise others that are competent using modern methods.

 

[Nickb]

A tad judgemental and bordering snobbery i’d say.
First thing you have failed to acknowledge is everybody’s land, population, landowners requirements, attitude, abilty, time, budget ect is different, not everyone lives in the utopian world you speak of!
If you came armed with only a glass scope at the tree plantation i shoot you would either get bored or binned off because you wouldn’t see any deer through your scope or binos let alone shoot one.
Busy with workforce and machinery by day and dog walkers in the evening the only chance you will have to nail a deer is in the last few minutes of legal light, thats if they decide to come out that early. I watch from a vantage point and see them slip in
through the thermal and its as if they have an inbuilt clock, no amount of field craft will help in that situation.
Likewise the estate i shoot, my brief is to shoot every muntjac i see and keep the roe in check therefore i need to be as efficient as possible, i’m not just out for a wander to appreciate the wildlife of an evening. A digital scope helps shooting in dense woodland as the usable light is reduced even further under the canopy.

Regarding your comment “If its too dark to see a deer with good glass its too dark to take a safe shot” im afraid thats absolute nonsense and smacks of someone thats never used a digital for stalking, in the dying few minutes of a light on a clear evening a decent digital scope will allow you to ID, sex a deer and more importantly see way beyond it to determine a safe backstop, dog walkers etc.
Take a look at the images below in the last few minutes of legal light you can clearly see the sex of this pair and the barn owl on the post! the last photo you can see the telegraph pole and the wires, its 400yds away, tell us why with that level of detail shooting with a digital scope isn’t safe at last knockings? have you ever looked through an Alpex in low light before?
Whats the difference between shooting a deer in the last moments of useable light with a glass scope and 15/20mins later with a digital? i’ll tell you, 15/20 mins thats all because if you get a runner you will still be tracking it in the dark, you’ll still be gralloching it in the dark and you’ll still be hauling it back to transport in the dark with either scope.

Nothing wrong with being a purist but it doesn’t give you grounds to patronise others that are competent using modern methods.

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Absolutely spot on

 

[JH83]

A tad judgemental and bordering snobbery i’d say.
First thing you have failed to acknowledge is everybody’s land, population, landowners requirements, attitude, abilty, time, budget ect is different, not everyone lives in the utopian world you speak of!
If you came armed with only a glass scope at the tree plantation i shoot you would either get bored or binned off because you wouldn’t see any deer through your scope or binos let alone shoot one.
Busy with workforce and machinery by day and dog walkers in the evening the only chance you will have to nail a deer is in the last few minutes of legal light, thats if they decide to come out that early. I watch from a vantage point and see them slip in
through the thermal and its as if they have an inbuilt clock, no amount of field craft will help in that situation.
Likewise the estate i shoot, my brief is to shoot every muntjac i see and keep the roe in check therefore i need to be as efficient as possible, i’m not just out for a wander to appreciate the wildlife of an evening. A digital scope helps shooting in dense woodland as the usable light is reduced even further under the canopy.

Regarding your comment “If its too dark to see a deer with good glass its too dark to take a safe shot” im afraid thats absolute nonsense and smacks of someone thats never used a digital for stalking, in the dying few minutes of a light on a clear evening a decent digital scope will allow you to ID, sex a deer and more importantly see way beyond it to determine a safe backstop, dog walkers etc.
Take a look at the images below in the last few minutes of legal light you can clearly see the sex of this pair and the barn owl on the post! the last photo you can see the telegraph pole and the wires, its 400yds away, tell us why with that level of detail shooting with a digital scope isn’t safe at last knockings? have you ever looked through an Alpex in low light before?
Whats the difference between shooting a deer in the last moments of useable light with a glass scope and 15/20mins later with a digital? i’ll tell you, 15/20 mins thats all because if you get a runner you will still be tracking it in the dark, you’ll still be gralloching it in the dark and you’ll still be hauling it back to transport in the dark with either scope.

Nothing wrong with being a purist but it doesn’t give you grounds to patronise others that are competent using modern methods.

View attachment 422661View attachment 422662

Spot on, very well said

 

[Heym SR20]

A tad judgemental and bordering snobbery i’d say.
First thing you have failed to acknowledge is everybody’s land, population, landowners requirements, attitude, abilty, time, budget ect is different, not everyone lives in the utopian world you speak of!
If you came armed with only a glass scope at the tree plantation i shoot you would either get bored or binned off because you wouldn’t see any deer through your scope or binos let alone shoot one.
Busy with workforce and machinery by day and dog walkers in the evening the only chance you will have to nail a deer is in the last few minutes of legal light, thats if they decide to come out that early. I watch from a vantage point and see them slip in
through the thermal and its as if they have an inbuilt clock, no amount of field craft will help in that situation.
Likewise the estate i shoot, my brief is to shoot every muntjac i see and keep the roe in check therefore i need to be as efficient as possible, i’m not just out for a wander to appreciate the wildlife of an evening. A digital scope helps shooting in dense woodland as the usable light is reduced even further under the canopy.

Regarding your comment “If its too dark to see a deer with good glass its too dark to take a safe shot” im afraid thats absolute nonsense and smacks of someone thats never used a digital for stalking, in the dying few minutes of a light on a clear evening a decent digital scope will allow you to ID, sex a deer and more importantly see way beyond it to determine a safe backstop, dog walkers etc.
Take a look at the images below in the last few minutes of legal light you can clearly see the sex of this pair and the barn owl on the post! the last photo you can see the telegraph pole and the wires, its 400yds away, tell us why with that level of detail shooting with a digital scope isn’t safe at last knockings? have you ever looked through an Alpex in low light before?
Whats the difference between shooting a deer in the last moments of useable light with a glass scope and 15/20mins later with a digital? i’ll tell you, 15/20 mins thats all because if you get a runner you will still be tracking it in the dark, you’ll still be gralloching it in the dark and you’ll still be hauling it back to transport in the dark with either scope.

Nothing wrong with being a purist but it doesn’t give you grounds to patronise others that are competent using modern methods.

View attachment 422661View attachment 422662

Clearly touched a nerve methinks. You pretty much confirm my views. Thanks.

 

[Pellet Pinger]

Clearly touched a nerve methinks. You pretty much confirm my views. Thanks.

You’re welcome, happy to enlighten you to what happens below your ivory tower.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

A tad judgemental and bordering snobbery i’d say.
First thing you have failed to acknowledge is everybody’s land, population, landowners requirements, attitude, abilty, time, budget ect is different, not everyone lives in the utopian world you speak of!
If you came armed with only a glass scope at the tree plantation i shoot you would either get bored or binned off because you wouldn’t see any deer through your scope or binos let alone shoot one.
Busy with workforce and machinery by day and dog walkers in the evening the only chance you will have to nail a deer is in the last few minutes of legal light, thats if they decide to come out that early. I watch from a vantage point and see them slip in
through the thermal and its as if they have an inbuilt clock, no amount of field craft will help in that situation.
Likewise the estate i shoot, my brief is to shoot every muntjac i see and keep the roe in check therefore i need to be as efficient as possible, i’m not just out for a wander to appreciate the wildlife of an evening. A digital scope helps shooting in dense woodland as the usable light is reduced even further under the canopy.

Regarding your comment “If its too dark to see a deer with good glass its too dark to take a safe shot” im afraid thats absolute nonsense and smacks of someone thats never used a digital for stalking, in the dying few minutes of a light on a clear evening a decent digital scope will allow you to ID, sex a deer and more importantly see way beyond it to determine a safe backstop, dog walkers etc.
Take a look at the images below in the last few minutes of legal light you can clearly see the sex of this pair and the barn owl on the post! the last photo you can see the telegraph pole and the wires, its 400yds away, tell us why with that level of detail shooting with a digital scope isn’t safe at last knockings? have you ever looked through an Alpex in low light before?
Whats the difference between shooting a deer in the last moments of useable light with a glass scope and 15/20mins later with a digital? i’ll tell you, 15/20 mins thats all because if you get a runner you will still be tracking it in the dark, you’ll still be gralloching it in the dark and you’ll still be hauling it back to transport in the dark with either scope.

Nothing wrong with being a purist but it doesn’t give you grounds to patronise others that are competent using modern methods.

View attachment 422661View attachment 422662

Would I class myself as a purist ? Yes I would!

Have I tracked more deer from people show in resent years with digital/ thermal scopes?

the honest answer is yes.

Deer shot earlier in the mornings and later in the evening, in situations that I call bending the rules of the law.

If you have to do that to keep your stalking then so be it, I am not going to judge, but on animal welfare grounds I PERSONALLY find them unethical.

But like I say if that is what you have to do to achieve what you have to achieve then so be it, I am glad I do not offer to track anymore.

That’s my personal opinion, if that also puts me in an ivory tower so be it.

 

[Pellet Pinger]

Would I class myself as a purist ? Yes I would!

Have I tracked more deer from people show in resent years with digital/ thermal scopes?

the honest answer is yes.

Deer shot earlier in the mornings and later in the evening, in situations that I call bending the rules of the law.

If you have to do that to keep your stalking then so be it, I am not going to judge, but on animal welfare grounds I PERSONALLY find them unethical.

But like I say if that is what you have to do to achieve what you have to achieve then so be it, I am glad I do not offer to track anymore.

That’s my personal opinion, if that also puts me in an ivory tower so be it.

Not at all, your posts are based on your experiences rather than to patronise and i guess you have actually looked through digital scope in low light whereas it’s doubtful some have reading the comments about safety.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Not at all, your posts are based on your experiences rather than to patronise and i guess you have actually looked through digital scope in low light whereas it’s doubtful some have reading the comments about safety.

Oh yes I’ve looked and shot deer through them and thermal, by all means I’ve tried them.

As for safety, if you know you ground it’s safe in a conventional scope it’s safe with thermal / digital

I have also used the early night vision extensively when I was a keeper fox shooting, I’ve also had clients use them on cull days bend the rules in the early mornings from blokes and apparently miss (later found gold medal cwd) because their that desperate to shoot something and that’s the exact reason I’ve banned them.

Based on my personal experience and client use I’ve decided not for me, or the land I shoot.

On the 500 acres here where I do the cull days were using conventional methods and shooting 80-100 head a year (cwd, red and muntjac) and have done for the last three years in 16 outings or 8 days stalking from well placed seats.

This will be the first winter too where thermal will also be banned if your shooting, purely as an experiment to see if it has an impact on the numbers shot, if the numbers are the same give of take 10% I’ll ban them permanently.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Don’t get me wrong I seriously thought about getting digital, last summer I was in the market for a new scope, my eyes have changed I now wear glasses permanently.

I had a budget of £1500 I could have bought a very nice HIK for that coin but I bought a new Schmidt bender with a ballistic turret as I now shoot 7x57 with 150gn bullets and the ability to dial in for range if I need to.

It’s horses for courses and what ever you feel you need to do the job you have to do.

 

[John Gryphon]

In my opinion good glass and the skill in using it is irreplaceable!

Add good dog to complete.

 

[270TOMMY]

This interests me i have been stalking a lot of years im old now but out regular always had good glass,i read all the hype about the habrok 4k rangefinder thermal etc everything under one roof.Marvellous i thought so i bought some a week ago been out with them twice and up to now im a little bit dissapointed optic mode not in the same league as glass,the thermal was good did what it was meant to do r/finder excellent i will try n/vivion tonight its early days yet got to give them a fair chance im learning as i go so i will post another comment in a months time

 

[Chris Richardson]

I've got a quantity of the same t-shirt brother. But there all looking quite a bit thread bare these days..
They were good times for me too back in the day @£3.20 per kilo
Kind of makes sense now all the midnight mutterings in shower for £1.20 per kilo... Keep staking them up

I’ve said the those famous last words more than once the last what when I rolled over 8 lowland red hinds over in a field of sugar beet 5 minutes turned into 5 hours of hard graft FFS back then I was getting £2.80/kg so a well paid 5 hours but I was chuntering the queens best English to myself all the way through.

I remember walking out into the field after pulling the trigger said these exact words

“FFS NDS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!”

Been in that situation several times since but stopped after 2, lost the drive so kill after that.

Didn’t need thermal or digital back then, don’t need it now.

Not quite as bad but dropped 6 fallow a long way from where I could get my truck out stalking alone one morning , only after I emptied the magazine did it think “ ffs that’s a long old drag ”

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Not quite as bad but dropped 6 fallow a long way from where I could get my truck out stalking alone one morning , only after I emptied the magazine did it think “ ffs that’s a long old drag ”

That’s what I call an FCB

 

[JH83]

Not quite as bad but dropped 6 fallow a long way from where I could get my truck out stalking alone one morning , only after I emptied the magazine did it think “ ffs that’s a long old drag ”

I have done that quite a few times on reds on the lakeland fells, full clip plus a few ‘thumbed in the top’ and will do it again this season most likely. My chiropractor takes his family on holiday on my payments . And this is meant to be fun…

 

[Essexsussex]

Over the years I have been a great advocate for digital day and nightvision but I have never claimed that it was better than day glass for deer stalking in fact I have pretty much been against standalone thermal for stalking deer for a number of reasons.

1. Species ID and Sex ID, condition and age ID is almost impossible even with high end thermal.

2 Thermal bleed in thermal often doesn't show what's in front of the deer making it hard to see if it's a safe sot or not. Often thermal gives you a false sense of confidence

3 With Thermal people will shoot in conditions they wouldn't normally such as in fog etc. And that might not be safe.

4. Even high end thermal struggles with environmentals and detection of safe back stops etc.


So that just a few of the downsides of thermal as a standalone scope but the technology has come along way but many of these concerns still exist.

Digital day vision in colour etc has also come a long way, better battery life, lighter units and 4k technology for example has made it more accessible for the stalking market, along with the law being changed in Nov 23. Stalkers can now record their shooting, document their misses and learn real time what went wrong and also keep a video of the deer they shot when they had their successes.

That's all well and good but has digital come enough of a way to surpass clear glass, the long and short of it is that in some ways it has and others it hasn't.

Most digital Scopes come with laser rangefinders and built in bullet drop calculators now, so to that respect it has surpassed the use of day scopes. Ok, you say but we have that in the Burris Eliminators, Burniston XTR, the Swarovski DS, yes you do, but, look at the price of those compared to your average day/night vision scope, and there's another benefit of digital, you have done with a day's stalking and you now wanna go foxing after dark, just clamp an IR torch on, switch to nightvision and away you go.
Now in this respect to day glass the digital Scopes are in someways a game changer, yes no need for to carry extra kit like a rangefinder etc, but, you cannot beat the reliability of day glass, the clarity daytime with day glass and the experience of day glass, well not yet that is.

With the new range of 4k scopes coming out many stalkers are gonna be suckered into throwing money into this new tech, and they should but only if it meets the needs of you.

I have heard the phrase "Game Changer" thrown about a lot these days and I have used it a couple of times myself, but, that phrase hasn't been used properly.

There is a big hype over this new Hik Micro Alpex 4K Lite scope and how this is a game changer. It's not ! and for guys on here it is not a stalking scope or a centrefire one, please don't think it is. The eye relief needed to see the screen properly is too close for a CF rifle even a light recoil one. Even Hik say it's for airgun and rimfire ONLY.

It is a good scope for £650 compared to the tech that was available 3 years ago, but there is better and cheaper on the market that you can use for deer stalking on a centrefire.

On a couple of recent videos I have done you will get a good idea of what to expect from a digital day scope.

Here is one

In that video I have been as honest as I possibly can . Also check out the Sika stalk one too.

As stalkers we are always held to a higher standard when it comes to personal ethics and morality, and rightly so. We have all been forced into a world of deer management, not just as a recreational sport but as an obligation, and because of this everyone of us find ourselves having to shoot more deer than we would normally do and for some it is more deer than what they would like.

Due to this we find ourselves in a world where we are looking to move away from traditional glass and stalk. The need for shorter stalks and long range shooting has become the norm, we are looking to push that extra hour in the morning and night to the max, and in doing so we are asking for the equipment to help. Thermal spotters in the pocket are normal now, before it was just us commercial forest managers that used them, digital Scopes with Night vision tech, even thermal Scopes are becoming a common sight on a recreational stalkers rifle these days.

The game is changing, the tech is NOT game changing.

But hey check out my videos, makes you think about what the future is .

ATB

DT

After wanting to go out and finding a dead digital scope (something charging related - possibly user error) I’ll never not have a rifle with a traditional scope on alongside the rifle with digital. They take a long time to charge and if integral batteries (or other malfunction) it’s game over.

 

[Chris Richardson]

After wanting to go out and finding a dead digital scope (something charging related - possibly user error) I’ll never not have a rifle with a traditional scope on alongside the rifle with digital. They take a long time to charge and if integral batteries (or other malfunction) it’s game over.

thats the way im going digital alpex with rusan qr mounts backed up by a zeiss also in qr mounts , my other rifle just has a glass scope