Thermal Hunting Guide
What I Learned at the Sellmark Ranch!
By Kenzie Fitzpatrick
There is something primal about thermal hunting that makes it very addictive. While it’s not a level playing field when you’re equipped with thermals, it can be quite thrilling to hunt predators in the dark. If you’re ready to dive into the world of night hunting, this guide will help walk you through what you need to get started. I’ll also share my experiences at Sellmark Ranch with Pulsar to share what worked for me and what I have learned along the way.
Necessary Gear
Thermal Riflescope
To set expectations, I’m going to tell you right now that thermal hunting isn’t cheap. There are cheap thermal optics on the market, sure, but I’ve seen many break, lose zero, and ultimately fail long term. I highly recommend investing in a high-quality optic that will last you for years or even decades.
The brand I’ve hunted with the most and find to be one of, if not the best, is Pulsar. Pulsar makes thermal imaging riflescopes, binoculars, monoculars, a thermal scope attachment, and multispectral binoculars. I personally use the Thermion 2 LRF (laser range finder) riflescope and have taken many hogs, raccoons, armadillos, and groundhogs with it. I’ve yet to take a coyote with it, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying. There are different models of the Thermion 2 LRF available, and the right one depends on your specific needs. The most important features to consider are sensor quality, magnification level, color palette options, whether you want photo or video recording capabilities, and battery life. The Thermion 2 LRF has a 1024x768-pixel sensor resolution, a magnification range of 1.75-14x, 64 GB of storage for video and photos, and will run for about 7 hours on a battery pack. The battery life doesn’t matter as much when you can bring spare charged batteries to keep it running longer.
Handheld Thermal
When you’re scoping out your environment in the dark, you don’t want to have to use your rifle to scan 360 degrees. Most likely, your rifle will be loaded, and the loaded gun with the riflescope will probably be considerably heavy. You absolutely need a handheld thermal for quick scanning. I currently use the Telos monocular, but I have also used the Merger LRF binoculars and can’t recommend those enough. Once again, the right handheld for you will depend on your needs and personal preference for looking through two lenses or one. If you don’t have a laser rangefinder built into your riflescope, I do recommend having it in your handheld, unless you have yardage markers you can see through thermal wherever you plan to hunt. The Telos comes in an LRF version, has 128 GB of internal memory for photo and video capture, and offers 9 color palette options.
Rifle
Similar to hunting big game, you need to know what kind of predators you plan to hunt so you can choose a rifle in an acceptable caliber. When it comes to picking a rifle, most people prefer a semi-automatic gas gun over a bolt-action rifle just because of the capacity difference. If you aren’t as familiar with a bolt-action as you are with a semi-automatic AR, I recommend using the AR if you want to take down several animals at once, rather than one or two.
On my first few trips to Sellmark Ranch, I used a loaner 6.5 PRC AR that was fun to shoot and had a high capacity. On my most recent trip last November, I brought my Horizon Firearms Vandal Dark II bolt-action rifle chambered in 22 Creedmoor. Using a bolt-action rifle is super challenging when a group of hogs scatters like wildfire after the first shot. My friend Tyler and I were both running bolt guns and still managed to cycle the action quickly and take down more than one or two hogs. The 22 Creedmoor is super accurate and one of the most pleasant rounds to shoot, especially suppressed. This rifle comes with a Picatinny rail, so it’s easy to mount a thermal riflescope. It is also equipped with an ARCA and Picatinny mount on the forend for mounting a bipod or the gun on a tripod.
Recommended Gear
Suppressor
In general, hunting and shooting suppressed is just the polite thing to do. I recommend using a suppressor for thermal hunting, especially if you plan to hunt near a neighbor’s house or property. While the sound reduction is most important, a suppressor can also benefit the shooter. When firing a rifle, a suppressor can greatly reduce felt recoil and muzzle rise. The benefit of this reduction is that you can fire a follow-up shot more quickly because the gun doesn’t move as much, making it easy to reacquire your crosshairs and target. I mounted the Dead Air Lazarus 6 suppressor on my Horizon Firearms rifle, and it’s one of my favorite suppressors. It is a shorter suppressor with a 6mm ARC/5.56 NATO caliber rating. It’s barely more than a pound in weight, which is what makes it ideal for hunting. I highly recommend mounting a suppressor that will reduce noise and cut down on the recoil of whatever caliber rifle you intend to hunt with.
Tripod
Hunting with a tripod changed my life. That might sound dramatic, but it has truly revolutionized how I hunt and where I can hunt. With the right tripod, you can hunt off a boat, from the ground, in an elevated blind, while standing in a field, or at a high angle up in the mountains. I have done all but the last so far, and I can tell you there hasn’t been a situation yet where I couldn’t use the tripod. I own a Recon V2 Inverted tripod from Two Vets Tripod with the 65mm ballhead and ARCALOCK QD. Because the Vandal Dark II comes with an ARCA rail, this ballhead and my rifle were immediately compatible. This ballhead supports heavy-weight rifles and allows you to adjust the angle of the ballhead to set your rifle up exactly how you need to. The Recon tripod can deploy to over 5 feet in height, has ¼-turn twist locks, and can support up to 100 pounds. The inverted legs make it super fast to set up, and the vented tubes prevent airlock. There are spring-loaded, angled adjustment tabs that will lock in place once you set the tripod legs at your desired angle. These legs can kick out super wide, which is why this tripod is so powerful in the field and in the mountains.
Support Bag and Tac-Table
If your rifle is not equipped with an ARCA or Picatinny-style mount, an alternative option is to mount a tac-table on your tripod and place a support bag on top. This creates a super stable shooting rest, and you can still set the tripod at the angle and height you need. I have been using the “Chesty” V2 Tac-Table from Rebel Scum Industries lately, not just for hunting, but for my competition shooting as well. This tac-table is capable of so much more than I’ve used it for so far, as it includes M-LOK slots, strap slots, and threaded holes for mounting various rails and accessories. The 2-Way integrated ARCA mount is compatible with the ballhead I use with the Recon V2 tripod.
For maximum stability, I recommend a heavy fill support bag that will grip onto the tac-table and support the weight of the rifle. I can’t recommend Wiebad’s Fortune Cookies enough. There are endless options for fill types, bag colors, and adding rubber in the arch. I use the sand fill micro mini fortune cookie (wax canvas) as it’s been my go-to for years, shooting PRS and long range in 3 Gun. A bag I just tried recently and fell in love with is the Revolution Bag from Cole-TAC. The proprietary fill is best described as a “pizza dough” texture and stays in place on the RSI tac-table.
Electronic Caller
An electronic caller is a handy tool for predator hunting. For example, you can play a locator call to get coyotes to howl back so you can identify where they are. You can also play distressed animal sounds through an electronic caller to draw coyotes in, thinking there is an injured animal, which means easy prey. I have the Johnny Stewart Executioner Electronic Game Caller, which has 100 premium calls and 300-yard-range RF communication technology. I have tested that distance, and even through the thick forest trees, the remote has initiated a call from hundreds of yards away.
Red Light Flashlight or Headlamp
One of the first things I learned about thermal hunting is that white light is a no-go. A red light is best for night hunting because most game animals (like deer and hogs) have dichromatic vision and cannot easily detect red wavelengths. Red light also tends not to spook other animals, either. As a hunter, red light will preserve your natural vision better than using a white light. It takes your eyes longer to adjust after using white light than after using red light.
Methods of Hunting
Bait and Blind
Depending on what state you’re in, it may or may not be legal to bait predators. If it is, a blind placed a good distance away from a feeder of some sort is an easy way to hunt predators. At Sellmark Ranch, they have Tank Blinds set up high, overlooking a cleared field with a feeder. If you have game cameras set up at a feeder, you can identify feeding time patterns to get a better idea of the best time to hunt. While it’s not a perfect science, Sellmark Ranch has cameras everywhere on the property to know when and where hogs most likely will be.
Roam Hunting
Roam hunting is similar to the “spot and stalk” method, although it’s more like its exact reverse. You essentially stalk your prey (predators) until you spot one. For roam hunting, I’ll set my rifle up on my tripod via ARCA mount and carry the tripod while looking through a monocular, waiting for something to light up on thermal. Once I spot a hog or a coyote through my monocular, I’ll set up the tripod to angle the gun in that direction until I pick up the target in my thermal scope. I’ve done this with a couple of friends now, not just thermal hunting, but daylight hunting as well. You can cover more ground, and it’s a lot quieter to walk than to drive an ATV from one position to the next.
Quick Lessons Learned
I’m going to give you a few quick lessons that I’ve learned from thermal hunting that will hopefully help you on your next thermal hunt.
- Pack light. I realize there is a lot that goes into after the hunt, like processing an animal or moving the carcass, but the less you have to carry on you during the hunt, the easier it is to thermal hunt. It is also a challenge to sift through a pack of gear to find what you’re looking for in the dark without turning on a light of some sort, which is the last thing you want to do when thermal hunting.
- The more batteries, the better. It’s too easy to throw some spare batteries in your pockets or bag when hunting. If you continuously run your thermals and plan to hunt all night, having an extra battery or two is never a bad idea.
- If you’re hunting with friends, plan your shots. I have hunted many hogs with friends and have even hunted one solo hog with a fellow writer. What I learned from all of these experiences is to have a plan for who is shooting what animal, if there are multiple, and have some sort of countdown plan. Because hogs scatter quickly after hearing a shot fired, you and your hunting buddy need to decide what animal to shoot at so you’re not aiming at the same target. From there, it can become chaotic, but you can set right and left limits for each other so your muzzles aren’t crossing, for example. One person will need to do a countdown, and, kind of like rock, paper, scissors, you need to decide whether you’re firing on or after the final number.
Have Fun and Be Safe!
As always, use the four rules of firearm safety when thermal hunting. It is especially important to know your target and what’s beyond it when shooting in the dark. Remember to have fun and stay safe!
