Night Vision Thermal drone videos

Hootiewho

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Figured I would share some of the clips I have been making of various critters. Especially seeing how popular the thermal drones are becoming in feral hog control and locating downed deer. DJI Matrice 350 RTK and Zenmuse H20N.

Group of coyotes I found hanging around where a wounded buck was last spotted the night before. Hunter wanted to let the buck lay and hopefully bleed out. Check out the eyes on the second coyote pictured.

 
Bar none the best gimbal payload with two thermal sensors, a crazy good day camera and an LRF.

With other drones, I have to fly around the property to PID with the thermal. With the H20N, I launch from my truck bed cover and can PID hogs in a heard of cattle at half a mile easily.

Price tag is up there matched with it’s level of performance 👍🏻
 
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Spotted a large boar bedded alone in some thick brush with the H20N/Matrice 350. I was close and had to throw sticks at him to get him to move to be able to see him with the rifle mounted thermal. He DID NOT like being shot. Old boy had a lot of fight in him. I have no doubt if he had laid eyes on me it would have been game on. Poor Soul was just too high strung.

 
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Using my Matrice 350 as the most baller spotting scope ever made. FWIW Proof 6mm ARC CF barrels converted by D. Wilson in an LMT MRP are about as close as you can get to a bolt gun in a semiautomatic package. If you know the Clinton House, you can only fire from one spot on the 1k range, so there is no fooling around distance wise.

 
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Local FD had a mascot dog that went missing. I was able to locate him and get him back home using the H20N. I was pretty certain this was him because a home that has an outside dog will have paths worn in the yard where they patrol the yard. Plus it was extremely cold out and there were no outside dog houses or feed/water bowls. Directed local LE and FD to this house and they were able to recover the missing pup.

 
It turns out, if you fill arrows with tungsten powder and drop them from 200', they will go straight through a hog. Around 12 have been made good hogs in this manner. I'm not posing the videos, but some here have seen them privately. But this demonstrates how well you can hit if you get your aiming spot down.

 
Using the supersonic crack of a bullet to draw these pigs in crops toward my shooters position. I would have 1 guy fire a suppressed shot in their direction which causes them actually move toward the shooter most of the time. Every time they would stop I would have him fire another single shot, until I got the pigs close enough that they could be shot in the crops they were in.

 
It turns out, if you fill arrows with tungsten powder and drop them from 200', they will go straight through a hog. Around 12 have been made good hogs in this manner. I'm not posing the videos, but some here have seen them privately. But this demonstrates how well you can hit if you get your aiming spot down.


Love it, you using lighted nocks to retrieve I assume?
 
Using the supersonic crack of a bullet to draw these pigs in crops toward my shooters position. I would have 1 guy fire a suppressed shot in their direction which causes them actually move toward the shooter most of the time. Every time they would stop I would have him fire another single shot, until I got the pigs close enough that they could be shot in the crops they were in. I have done this enough that I find it actually works more times than not so long as the rifle is suppressed and supersonic ammo is used. They just hear the crack 90 degrees to and behind them and not the gun report, so they usually run straight toward the shooter. It doesn't work as well with subsonic ammo. These guys are super squared away, and had no issues putting rounds at pig height straight under the drone. I have in the past tied a hand warmer to a string and lowered it just above the pigs as a sighting point for guys. Tell them to fire so many feet below the thermal signature of the hand warmer in what I estimate the height of the corn to be vs the pig's height. It has worked well many times. Esp in wheat.

 
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Coyotes, dogs, raccoons and bears are the only animals I've noticed that will actually look up and try to find it. I found a wounded buck for these folks the night before and went back the next morning to relocated it after they gave it time to pass (their choice). These are the coyotes that found him over night.

 
I was trying to push this group across a highway to a property we had access to and were set up on. LOL unfortunately a car came buzzing along at the wrong time. Luckily they didn't run out in front of him.

 
Using the supersonic crack of a bullet to draw these pigs in crops toward my shooters position. I would have 1 guy fire a suppressed shot in their direction which causes them actually move toward the shooter most of the time. Every time they would stop I would have him fire another single shot, until I got the pigs close enough that they could be shot in the crops they were in. I have done this enough that I find it actually works more times than not so long as the rifle is suppressed and supersonic ammo is used. They just hear the crack 90 degrees to and behind them and not the gun report, so they usually run straight toward the shooter. It doesn't work as well with subsonic ammo. These guys are super squared away, and had no issues putting rounds at pig height straight under the drone. I have in the past tied a hand warmer to a string and lowered it just above the pigs as a sighting point for guys. Tell them to fire so many feet below the thermal signature of the hand warmer in what I estimate the height of the corn to be vs the pig's height. It has worked well many times. Esp in wheat.


Going to have to give this method a try!

Night before last we were in the corn with them, went for a pistols only kind of night lol.
 
Thanks for sharing and I will have to try the tip on the suppressed shot to move them in when in the high stuff. Normally we just park the drone over them and stalk or radio the shooter in. Or try and push them to a clearing which sometimes works….and mostly doesn’t.

We have had several over the years run towards us when in an open field with the treeline…..especially planted pines….within 100 yards or so behind them. They definitely get confused with the suppressed shots.

One addition I encourage you to consider is adding a shotgun with a WMT to the arsenal. I have been running a Rock Island Armory VR80. And 00 buck shot. Not a finely built weapon but it works. If you can get within 30-40 yards or so the kill rate increases exponentially over the rifle in the brush or thick cover. Not sure what a mag dump of 00 will do in the corn….the farmer might not like you mowing down the crop with all that lead spread😃
 
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Thanks for sharing and I will have to try the tip on the suppressed shot to move them in when in the high stuff. Normally we just park the drone over them and stalk or radio the shooter in. Or try and push them to a clearing which sometimes works….and mostly doesn’t.

We have had several over the years run towards us when in an open field with the treeline…..especially planted pines….within 100 yards or so behind them. They definitely get confused with the suppressed shots.

One addition I encourage you to consider is adding a shotgun with a WMT to the arsenal. I have been running a Rock Island Armory VR80. And 00 buck shot. Not a finely built weapon but it works. If you can get within 30-40 yards or so the kill rate increases exponentially over the rifle in the brush or thick cover. Not sure what a mag dump of 00 will do in the corn….the farmer might not like you mowing down the crop with all that lead spread😃
LOL oh I'm sure the farmers won't mind that.
 
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