I get asked this question quite often. This is a little video I put together that demonstrates why thermal generally will not work for this purpose.

Yes, I agree. We have seen the same thing. I have seen a large chunk of exit wound stay warm enough after a few minutes, but it does fad fast, or adjusts to the ambient temps within a few minutes.

What we have used the thermals for, is finding downed animals in the dark following the trail that they ran down. You can often see the animal down when scanning when you know the animal went this direction, and look with the thermal. We have recovered several deer and pigs doing this.

I found a sow I shot Sunday night with the thermal. She ran into some very thick brush around the base of a tree. I finally spotted her heat sig and even with the flashlight I could barely see her in there. Thermal is a great tool for many things including scouting, spotting, identifying, shooting, and finding downed animals.

Agree with the above. While thermal may not be very useful for tracking blood, it can certainly help to find a downed animal.
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Right, but that hasn't really ever been in question, LOL. Spotting a downed animal is about like spotting a live animal. If you have direct line of sight, you can spot it with thermal, at least for a few hours. It is when you can't see the animal with thermal that is at issue...and people ask if it can be used on blood trails.

Good video

I’ve been told if you carry a spray bottle with peroxide in it you can spray the ground and where there is blood it will bubble up and it’s easier to see. This is of coarse if you lose a blood trail.

That will work, particularly in dark ground cover. In lighter ground cover, the bubbling can be hard to see. Hydrogen peroxide is an eye and lung irritant and goggles should be worn if spraying a mist. Unlike a couple of the demo vids on youtube, hydrogen peroxide should be kept in an opaque container to prevent breakdown by UV. You may want to consider a sprayer you pump up first as you may be finger pumping a hand sprayer hundreds of times, LOL.

I don’t wanna find a hog or coyote that bad but a deer maybe lol

Ramsey used his Pulsar weekend before last to find my pops doe that was down but not where she should have been. She was 25 yards from the truck when we found her.

He found my BIL's doe before they even got out of the truck before that

The have been several occurrences of me looking for my coyote 20 minutes after the shot and tracking blood with my HD38A

What about finding downed pheasants with a thermal?

Birds are hard to see with thermal in general. Their plumage appears "cold" while their bodies are in fact quite "warm."