Thread: Thermalling deer

Daggers you are quite right in saying they take quite a bit of skill to use properly, and I certainly don't have it with the short amount of time I have spent using it thus far. In fact the problems I have had old probably give a few a bit of a chuckle.

The first night I was away hunting I spent a bit of time in the dark watching a hare near the hut, trying to learn to use it a bit better, but mustn't have switched it off properly because the next morning I started scanning the opposite river bank before we crossed (again in the dark) and I noticed a small symbol flashing on the screen - turned out to be the low battery warning, and the unit went dead.

Didn't want to muck around in the dark trying to change batteries, so put it away in my day pack, crossed the river and as it got light we watched four hinds we had spooked disappear off into the bush.

Next morning with new batteries, I again scanned across the river, saw nothing but was having a bit of trouble focusing the unit, crossed the river, and watched probably the same four hinds again disappear off into the bush.

Back at the hut later in the day I had a good look to see why I couldn't focus properly to find the whole lens mechanism had come loose, so instead of turning the focusing ring I was unscrewing the whole lens.

As I have said before on this thread, I found it was set a bit bright and looking through it spoiled my night vision - for probably 30 seconds or so after looking through it all I could see with my right eye was a bright spot, and couldn't have shot anything anyway. Playing with the settings will fix this.

It is a learning curve and it will take time to become proficient with it, but we only got it for a bit of fun and to see what we had previously been missing.