Conditions and scrolling through the palettes are all factors as far as seeing blood. Regardless, this thread was corrupted from the original post which was, that with body hunting with thermal, blood tracking isn’t the easiest and fastest way I recover game these days. Not saying thermal is 100% but neither is blood tracking.

Which brings us back around to being able to find a body. If you have sparse vegetation and no cover, yes, finding the body is easy. But I have been in lots of places where if you are looking down the wrong briar patch you will never find the downed animal. A good hunter needs to be able to do a decent job at blood tracking. It is an essential part of finding downed game as much as shooting essentials are a part of taking down game.

A thermal can help. But please do not think a themal (or any tech) replaces fieldcraft.

Actually yes I do. I have one in particular that I call my hog rock. I use it to judge distance at exactly 250 yards.

You would have never seen this with a light. Try again.

ntxtrapper, if you can see that much of a body, the vegetation is scant at best. I dont know what range that animal is, but I have plenty of places on my property that make it near impossible to see a laying dead animal at even 30 feet away. Unless I just happen upon them, I would never spot them with a thermal. I have spent enough time scanning to know any live animals more than 10 feet back into the treeline are just not visible until way late in the winter when all the leaves are gone, and even then a live animal is only visble back maybe 30-40 feet into the woods, so going and scanning for a dead animal would for me be finding a needle in a haystack. I also find that fallen logs, rocks, nd other non-dead animal things light up on thermal as much as a dead animal would, and stay lit up for hours after dark in a winter day. So I am much more likely to find a dead animal by finding blood trail, and following it.

Again, what works for you is not going to work for everyone, just as I don't expect every where to have the same vegetation as my place or other places I have been on. Please continue to show the benefits of thermal, they do have benefits as we all know.

Yes, every place is different with varying types of vegetation. That’s why I titled this thread “Thermal has changed the way I look for downed game” vs “Thermal has changed the way you should look for downed game”

Maybe you need to look at the title of the thread again...you meant to say the first line of your OP said...

Anyway, I love thermal, it is a great tech, but I just wanted to make sure some newbie hunter isn't out there thinking they can be lazy and not learn to blood track. I also realize there are different levels of skill when it comes to blood tracking. But I stand by my statement a few posts ago, we should never let tech be a substitute for good fieldcraft. Learn the skills, then add in adjuncts. If you use the adjuncts too early, the skills suffer and that can lead to a whole slew of problems.

There are different levels of skill when utilizing thermal too. I’ve been using it for a decade and I use it every night on my ranch. Most folks use it on their lease a few times a year and think they are proficient with it. I stand by my statement too that thermal is only as good as the operator of it.

I just want to be rich enough to have fancy toys like you boys! I had a Pulsar Thermion once and it was EXCELLENT! Had to sell it to pay property taxes when I found out the ex wife had drained that savings account. Then the divorce cost me so much I couldn't afford to replace it. That rifle is sadly still sitting naked in the safe waiting for those lottery numbers to come through for me! :-)