Double Naught Spy
Well-Known
One of the questions I am often asked about thermal is whether or not it can be used to help find blood trails. The answer is that it is usually not helpful at all. The simple reason is because thermal sees differences in temperature and blood will cool fairly quickly to the temperature of whatever it is on and hence not be discernible on typical commercial scopes that hunters use.
This video illustrates the issue. It probably happens faster in this example because the blood splattered on metal, but in my years of using thermal, I have never been able to shoot a hog, have it run, climb out of the stand and go to where it was shot and pick up the blood trail on thermal, just a few minutes after the shot.
The shooting of the coyote was just the first part of the hunt. Here is the whole hunt without the explanation about blood tracking...
This video illustrates the issue. It probably happens faster in this example because the blood splattered on metal, but in my years of using thermal, I have never been able to shoot a hog, have it run, climb out of the stand and go to where it was shot and pick up the blood trail on thermal, just a few minutes after the shot.
The shooting of the coyote was just the first part of the hunt. Here is the whole hunt without the explanation about blood tracking...