I am hoping to get some first hand advice on which thermal unit I need. I've been reading a lot about them, but have never used one myself.
I will buy one primarily for animal detection in lower temps (-20 deg to 50 deg f). I'm hoping to be able to get a good idea of size/movement of animals out to 5oo yds. Longer is better, as always.
My main driving force to drop the money on one is for elk hunting. Where I hunt, we have had an influx of grizzly bears. I hunt mostly with my wife in very steep country in wilderness and on foot. We generally hike in hours before sunrise in silence and using red light to avoid detection by the elk. Last year I found myself following grizzly tracks at times and frankly, it's scary. We had 3 attacks within a few miles of my hunting spot last year. My wife thinks it's scarier hiking out at night while packing the carcass (seems to happen at least once a season), but then I'm lights on and volume up. As the country is steep, I would like to be able to scan the mountain aspect ahead before climbing, then from vantage points. Once on the slope you can generally only see 25-100yds through the light timber. This way I might avoid a confrontation, which I feel is inevitable unless I do something different.
Of course, the idea of the scope is very attractive for other purposes. I would love to have one in my pack while white tail hunting, especially with a bow. Finding animals in the brush can be tough. A scope would be great for the ability to hunt at night such as for coyotes and also for the general bad-a-ness of it.
I've ruled out the low resolution scopes after watching some youtube footage. Here are the devices I'm considering, though it is not a set list:
Flir ps32--looks hard to beat at for the price, many reviews available
ATN OTS-X-F314--better refresh rate, upgradeable lenses for zoom/fov, but I can't find any first hand info
ATN Thor--hard to justify to the wife and the tax man (did I mention this will be used for my construction business for energy audits?), but some relatively good deals are out there
Thanks for any help available.
I will buy one primarily for animal detection in lower temps (-20 deg to 50 deg f). I'm hoping to be able to get a good idea of size/movement of animals out to 5oo yds. Longer is better, as always.
My main driving force to drop the money on one is for elk hunting. Where I hunt, we have had an influx of grizzly bears. I hunt mostly with my wife in very steep country in wilderness and on foot. We generally hike in hours before sunrise in silence and using red light to avoid detection by the elk. Last year I found myself following grizzly tracks at times and frankly, it's scary. We had 3 attacks within a few miles of my hunting spot last year. My wife thinks it's scarier hiking out at night while packing the carcass (seems to happen at least once a season), but then I'm lights on and volume up. As the country is steep, I would like to be able to scan the mountain aspect ahead before climbing, then from vantage points. Once on the slope you can generally only see 25-100yds through the light timber. This way I might avoid a confrontation, which I feel is inevitable unless I do something different.
Of course, the idea of the scope is very attractive for other purposes. I would love to have one in my pack while white tail hunting, especially with a bow. Finding animals in the brush can be tough. A scope would be great for the ability to hunt at night such as for coyotes and also for the general bad-a-ness of it.
I've ruled out the low resolution scopes after watching some youtube footage. Here are the devices I'm considering, though it is not a set list:
Flir ps32--looks hard to beat at for the price, many reviews available
ATN OTS-X-F314--better refresh rate, upgradeable lenses for zoom/fov, but I can't find any first hand info
ATN Thor--hard to justify to the wife and the tax man (did I mention this will be used for my construction business for energy audits?), but some relatively good deals are out there
Thanks for any help available.
