Night Vision NV and thermal kills...

You are undoubtedly a brave man. Moving around at night in what appears to be moderate to taller grass during the spring and summer under NV without snake legging protection. I'm a chicken little. Snake protection to the max for me when out in the hinterlands.
Believe me I’d be dressed differently if we didn’t get subzero temps for extended periods here. Kills all the snakes, spiders and such. The dang ticks somehow survive though, I think I pulled 5 off me
 
What do you do with your thermals when the varmint season ends, You hunt genus Mus !
I converted a quiet $150 .177 Co2 rifle to low pressure PCP and mounted the backup Adder scope.
Mus beware !
Fusion Thermal.jpg
 
So I'm not 'sploden yotes or slaying hogs (yet) but I heard some scratching up in the attic so I grabbed "cute and useless" aka the critter git'r and ended this trash panda coming out of the eves. We all gotta start somewhere! :LOL:
1st thermal kill.jpg

Here's cute and useless... For being a .22lr it does the deed well!
After Dark Critter Git'r.jpg
 
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This is a continuation of the night from Episode 80. I shot 6 coyotes on the first stand and drew a blank on the 2nd stand. This video starts on the third stand where I harvested a single coyote. I was ready to call it after 3 only stands due to the heavy fog. It was making it dangerous to even drive from location to location. However, I drove by a sunflower field that was partially harvested. There was a big meadow/opening so it gave me a spot to try to coax them into. I believe I was again in between two packs of coyotes as they came from two different directions. This final stand ended with a quad. The fog was so thick that I barely found the closest coyote to me, and decided it was time to gather my things and get out of the area. This meant no pictures or videos with the quad. 4 stands and 11 coyotes isn't a bad night, but it left me feeling a bit frustrated of what could have been if I could have hunted the entire night. I spent 6.5 hours driving in total to get there and back and only hunted for around 4 hours.

 
Urban AG area, Double this morning .
Urban Dogs around the city limits are definitely harder work to get in for a shot . Their born and raised hiding, with seeing humans around every day. Family houses scattered around, Farm workers and road traffic ..etc, their smart dogs.

Old and a young male Dogs .
Young dog was fast and stupid. . but he still had the sense after standing off couple minutes and avoid the shot after being spotted . he worked a big round-about threw blueberry rows, and popped-up opposite side to checkout the E-cal.
The ( top ) old dog was Friggin OLD, teeth worn down bad, white/gray on the face. He definitely been around the block for a few years, Was pretty Sly the way he handled his stalking, working his way in I almost not seen him.
.25-223 AR

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Double.jpg
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Have you ever had one of those nights when coyotes just seemed to respond no matter what you did? This was one of those nights. Not only did they come, but on one stand in particular, I called some back multiple times. I would shoot one, a coyote or coyotes would leave, I would hit another sound, and they would circle back and come in again. Fun night and fun stand.

 
Have you ever had one of those nights when coyotes just seemed to respond no matter what you did? This was one of those nights. Not only did they come, but on one stand in particular, I called some back multiple times. I would shoot one, a coyote or coyotes would leave, I would hit another sound, and they would circle back and come in again. Fun night and fun stand.


No
 
How much better is the image through the optic itself in person on the XRF?
It's better for sure but Nvision does an outstanding job with the video compression, best in the industry IMO. I've had several different Berings (Super Hogster, Phenom and Super Yoter) an AGM Varmint, and Pulsar Helion XP50 Pro 2 and the video quality blows them all out of the water.

Obviously image quality of ALL thermals is degraded with humidity, heat and magnification. I live in an area thats warm and super humid and I typically zoom to take shots, hence a lot of my videos aren't in optimal condition and at base mag like a lot of other videos around.


I've used the majority of stuff on the market and Nvision is at the top of the food chain.
 
It seemed like on this night when I went to take a look at the coyotes after many of the stands, the coyote faces were planted in the snow. Nothing like hearing the "thwack" and seeing them fold up and face-planting into the snow. At 5:40 in this video was #300 for the fall/winter all hunting solo. At this point, I was almost positive 400 would happen and was holding out hope maybe 500 was in reach. The snow was horrible, but it had firmed up some and as long as more major snowstorms didn't happen, I was hopeful. My average per night was staying strong, so I felt it would come down to how many nights I would get the opportunity to hunt. I won't give any final numbers away, but the winter had other plans for the rest of my season.
 
First time out with my iRay Rico Mk1 and decided to try some mouse squeaks. It only took a couple of minutes before noticing some movement out a ways. Ended up calling in 2 foxes to the stand. First was shot at 40 yards, the second was shot at 150 yards. I'm hooked!

I'm still getting my 6 ARC up and running, so I tossed the iRay on my Terminus Zeus chambered in 6 CM. Shooting Prime 107 SMK ammo for the time being.

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Thought I had the raccoons under control but I was wrong. The kitties have been acting squirrelly (Sleeping up high and a bit tense when outside after dark) so I grabbed cute and useless and slipped up on top of the hill. Caught these two out in the open with their guards down. One was messing around on a downed log and the other was up in a tree.
Double!.jpg
Full disclosure... A head count of said kitties was required post shoot for... reasons. :LOL:
 
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Here’s a little photo dump of a few from this winter. Snow conditions suck, last night I snowshoed in to a spot, took the shoes off and dropped down to my waist. I got my tripod set up as high as it will go (which is close to 7’) and I still had to bend over at the waist to see through the scope haha.

Been running the new Iray Bolt TL35 V2 for a few weeks now and the image is as good or better than my V1 was, and the addition of a built in microphone is a nice feature to have. I’d say battery life is better, but I never had any complaints with the first one either.

I’ve managed to put 14 down for ‘23 so far. Hopefully hit a few more in the next couple weeks then I’ll give them a little break until July/august.
Nicely done

How far away?
 
Well, when the big critters don't want to play you adjust. I got my first mus!
View attachment 8205143
Mus are harder to hit than any coyote I've hunted.
Hunting them will teach you patience, as you need to wait for them to stop and then shoot quickly.
Speaking of Mus hunting, I got this one through a fence after it ran around annoying the shit out of me.
I think it was giving me the claw when I popped it !
 
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So are you guys using .22s or air guns for mice? Just curious if a pellet gun will hurt a thermal. I know they can destroy a regular day scope
I'm running a .22 but there are a metric ton of ratting videos on Youtube of folks running thermals on pellet guns. Seems like someone would have something to say if they were failing. 🤷‍♂️
 
I'm running a .22 but there are a metric ton of ratting videos on Youtube of folks running thermals on pellet guns. Seems like someone would have something to say if they were failing. 🤷‍♂️
I’m not an air rifle guy but I don’t think a PCP pellet gun has the same recoil impulse as a spring powered air gun. It seems those guys that do ratting use PCP for multiple shots rather than breaking the barrel each time. I could be wrong though.
 
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I’m not an air rifle guy but I don’t think a PCP pellet gun has the same recoil impulse as a spring powered air gun. It seems those guys that do ratting use PCP for multiple shots rather than breaking the barrel each time. I could be wrong though.
This is true and crossed my mind. I don't see alot (or any really) springers in use. @shoots100 What kind of pellet gun are you rocking? As an aside, if I mounted my RH25 to a springer I would turn the pic rail mount around. As designed it has a recoil mitigating device in aka springs in it so if I had a rifle with a "reversed" recoil impulse I would reverse the mitigation device. This of course is all conjecture.
 
2nd trip out to our family ranch with the 6mm Creedmoor. For the life of me, I can't seem to call in any coyotes - just a bunch of foxes. Definitely a good time though!

This one snuck in to 22 yards - while I was scanning with my handheld, I heard something pounce ahead of me. I turned to my right and there he was, just sitting there listening to the mouse squeaks on my fox pro. I carefully snuck onto my rifle, pressed record and panned over to him. I didn't have time to adjust the focus as I was afraid he was going to run before shooting. 107 SMK just pencils through things, so I swapped to the 87 gr Vmax to give it a go.




Next night out, I caught this fox sneaking on a hillside. I tried to coax him down a bit, but he wasn't interested. The 87 gr vmax did the trick at 100 yards.

 
This is true and crossed my mind. I don't see alot (or any really) springers in use. @shoots100 What kind of pellet gun are you rocking? As an aside, if I mounted my RH25 to a springer I would turn the pic rail mount around. As designed it has a recoil mitigating device in aka springs in it so if I had a rifle with a "reversed" recoil impulse I would reverse the mitigation device. This of course is all conjecture.
I use a modified Fusion 2 Co2 .177 rifle I converted over to PCP with my backup AGM TS35-384 scope, as the Halo X50 won't focus at the short ranges I shoot them at.
I have several large caliber PCP rifles but needed a small cal rifle that's quieter and backyard friendly to use during the off season in NY.
It also gave me a chance to familiarize my self with the backup scope.
If you look in the video's, it has no recoil.
Springer is a no go.
 
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I use a modified Fusion 2 Co2 .177 rifle I converted over to PCP with my backup AGM TS35-384 scope, as the Halo X50 won't focus at the short ranges I shoot them at.
I have several large caliber PCP rifles but needed a small cal rifle that's quieter and backyard friendly to use during the off season in NY.
It also gave me a chance to familiarize my self with the backup scope.
If you look in the video's, it has no recoil.
Springer is a no go.

@shoots100 Thank you, sir! Great information to have when I fall down the air gun rabbit hole! Very much appreciated!