The weirdest thing happened tonight. I have been trying to get this big hog for a few months now. Tonight was the first time I ever saw him in person. However, he had no thermal footprint. I could not see him with my hand held monocular and could also not see him with the thermal sight on my rifle. I ended up taking a shot with a regular scope and, unfortunately, missed. I didn’t know if I hit hit him or not until I got down there (a couple of hundred yards away) and looked with a light because he didn’t show on either thermal. In fact, I was only able to totally positively identify him by pulling up the website for my cellular camera and seeing him on there - picture attached. This is the biggest hog we have had on our place and I now understand why LOL

I assume others have had this happen to them? And by the way I have a couple of nice units that have never let me down before – an Armasight Prometheus and Armasight Zeus.

He probably just came from a wallow. I have seen hogs cover d in fresh mud where only half of them was really visible.

thx

Could also be partially because of humidity, I know it was humid where I was at last night.

I went out last night to hunt and noticed a lot of the cattle on thermal were difficult to see. Adding to what Sapper said, it was obvious they had been in the tank and gotten wet. Some were cooler than others and therefore were wetter or more freshly out of the water. Some were dry or partially dry. A few seemed to be in between and blended very well with the temperature of the vegetation. In other words, they were externally slightly below body temperature and were very close to ambient ground temperature.

As he notes, wallowing can help hide the thermal signature, both between getting wet and the mud. The mud can retain moisture and provide cooling for an extended period of time.

Yeah, like Arnold in Predator.

Mr. Hog said, "I ain't got time to bleed."

Thx guys. That probably explains it

Expect to see a lot of that over the next week with how hot it is. Every type of animal is going to be doing everything they can to stay cool if we are in the 110's for highs and mid-80's for lows.

I seen a deer 2 days ago that his legs below his knees were wet and almost invisible in the thermal. Looked like he was floating lol.

That would have really blown my mind.

Thermal Crossover