Like I said the blood is irrelevant. I can see the body though the thick brush without needing blood. I’m guessing you don’t have one or have limited experience using one. Not even birds can hide from thermal…

I have one and have used it to attempt to find downed animals…not always the gimme you are suggesting it is. I will let you shoot something and try to find it in tall grass. Or in thick woods. You wanna try not following blood in south texas?

I am not disagreeing with what you are saying, i am just saying you are WAY oversimplifying the effect thermal has on finding downed game.

Whe I first started using it, in 2013, for finding suspects who ran into the woods from us, the definition was good and I used it for hunting with good results. The newest units are incredible compared to them and I suggest you try them. I have used this one in south Texas with great success.

That is pretty cool. Looks like a useful tool to augment tracking skills. In reality if your shot is good, recovery is a lay down. In the instance of a bad hit when pushing the animal for the first 3-4 hours is ill advised, I think the capability is diminished . When you need to let things stew overnight the advantage is lost. My take is use it where it helps and enjoy hitting the easy button if it makes sense. With a good hit though, only minimal tracking skills are needed. When things go south tracking skills are necessary. Ultimately neither thermal or mad tracking skills come close to the ability of a good dog when a recovery goes to hell in a hand basket.

Really cool!

I haven’t hunted in 8-9 years and paid zero attention to what all’s been coming out, so I’ve missed out on the technology and haven’t researched it too much. If you are in a thick cedar patch (juniper brush, not real cedar), about how far would the useable range be (just approx)? It would be a great tool to find the hogs that are hiding out of view. Thanks for any info shared.

The 2 hogs my neighbor shot with one bullet would have took prob an hour or so to track. The blood was cold by the time I got there. Just scanning the general direction which they ran with my thermal I found the first one in less than 5 mins the other in about 10.

Thick brush? Like here? We shoot hogs in heavy brush and the hogs disappear from thermal view. Why? Because thermal cannot see through brush.


I have been using thermal for over a decade, did thermal customer demonstrations for four years, and get to test a variety of thermals from various manufacturers and I produce a lot of thermal videos, just to get the creds out of the way for whether or not I have put in the time to address this issue. Thermals do not see through other objects such as brush or window glass. What you are calling heavy brush ain't that heavy if you are seeing stuff on the other side of it or in it. If you are seeing a critter, that is via all the gaps in the brush and is direct line of sight. That direct line of sight for unaided vision, using a flashlight, or potentially night vision with an IR illuminator, certainly may be thwarted by photonic barriers (most notably, reflected light from objects in foreground that outshine objects in the background that are underilluminated and often go unnoticed). However, with the correct lighting, that hog would be as visible with the unaided eye or even night vision than with thermal because you do have direct line of sight vision on the critter.

In actual heavy brush, like the oat field, hogs not above the foliage were invisible to us. You had to walk close enough to be above the foliage to see the hogs with thermal. If thermal could actually see through brush, then the hogs we were shooting would not only have their tops visible and would not disappear from view when shot and they drop.

With that said, thermals are a huge help in finding downed game, but the laws of physics still apply.

Every situation is different but I see them through the moderately thick cedars 50-60 yards pretty regularly. There are spots here a person can't even walk through and 20 yards is still doable. All you have to see is a sliver of animal between the brush and limbs. As for broom weed type of foliage, a long way is easy

I, too, use thermal very regularly (more than once/week) at work for looking for people who dont want to be found as well. I do carry mine while hunting, and yes, sometimes it is a great time saver. Thermal will not, however, see through fully leafed bushes/trees/etc. If you can see through the brush with thermal, its not what i would call heavy. That is why it is not often successful finding animals or people that are not on flat/semi-open ground, unless they are relatively close to where you are looking. I assure you, that DPS air assets have way better thermal than anything handheld that 99.9% of us use and dogs find hiding suspects all the time that they cant see due to foliage (discounting people hiding under cars and buildings that cant be seen from the air anyway). For a gun shot deer that typically wont go far, ive used mine and seen where they dropped yes. On a arrow shot deer that may go a hundred yards or more in thick early season brush, far less successful. Im just throwing this out to say that people shouldnt go dropping a couple grand on a thermal handheld and hope it will magically make finding dead animal a piece of cake. Are they great tools? Yep. I cant tell you how many times ive scanned and picked up a deer in a treeline that was so well camoflaged you wouldnt have known he was there with naked eye. But they arent the end all to using tracking dogs or even close

If I’m using the thermal it’s a last ditch effort after both my skills and my dogs have failed me. It might save time on deer that I would’ve found easily but it’s not helping much as thick as my place is. You would also have to go and check every boulder that lights up because they all look like animals when they are not moving

I have found regardless of if it’s a hand held civilian spotter or a 200,000 dollar Flir Ultra 8000 on a helicopter, they are only as good as the operator.

And they are all only as good as the physics of thermal imaging. And thermal imaging cant see through thick brush

The technology and physics have their roles in the equation as you, that you keep forgetting.

From the good folks at FLIR Teledyne...

Can Thermal Imaging See Through Walls? And Other Common Questions
https://www.flir.com/discover/cores-components/can-thermal-imaging-see-through-walls/

It's a useful tool for sure, but can not completely replace good old fashioned tracking. The main thing for me that comes into play when looking for downed game is base magnification. Our place has fairly thick cover and it's difficult to see/scan with a higher base magnification like 3x or 3.5x when your in the brush. A 1 - 2 base mag works better for me. Just FYI for anyone looking to purchase a handheld thermal for this purpose.

Part of the reason why magnification is trouble for you isn't the magnification, but the FOV. As you increase magnification, native or zoomed, you reduce you FOV. I actually use a 4.5x thermal for all my scanning and searching. There is more movement to search the same area when the FOV is smaller.

I have plenty of thermals but my dog outworks all of them.

Correct, that's pretty much what I was trying to say.

When searching for downed animals in thicker brush I prefer lower base mag. For scanning fields or more open areas at night hunting pigs then higher base mag is fine.

Thermal is a great tool but it has its limitations. Especially thick woods, terrain with lots of elevation changes even small dips, and when it’s really humid or wet outside

Doesn't work so well in rocky slopes like we have around Mason. At dusk the rocks retain a lot of heat making a thermal less effective.

I agree, my GSP is 100% so far. Mythbusters proved you can't fool a tracking dog. I think it is impossible?

nah bruh, ozonics coupled with HECS can fool any dogs nose...if you know you know....

When I was doing thermal, we'd fly over trees to see tanks at Lawton.

You have a lot of PSRs? (pig-shaped rocks). We often had that issue down in Bosque County.

Or just a lot of rocks that look like targets all over. Either way, a challenge.

I had a set of thermal binoculars. Didn’t use them for awhile and the batteries corroded and ruined the set. Haven’t replaced them.

What I have found is like what you have noticed, the blood goes ambient very quickly and becomes invisible to thermal MOST of the time. I have one instance where the blood trail lasted for quite a while (over 40 minutes), but within seconds, it was no longer hot and went from black how to white cool. It was the white cool that was distinguishable.

On my last hunt, I killed a hog and set up the scope and tripod about 4-5 yards from it to get thermal video on the ground. The hog had pumped out a lot of blood and nothing was distinguishable on thermal 8 minutes after the hog went down.



(we'll see how long YT allows this video to be public...)