Thread: Carrying thermal monocular in the bush

Here's a few things to ponder. No advice as such, but just an experience.
I was using mine yesterday morning, shooting hares. Not in bush, but out in the open, in drizzle that turned to rain. The thermal comes with a front lens cover, but not one for the rear. I have a pouch for mine, on a chest harness, that sits vertically, front lens pointing down. I ended up putting it in my pocket as in the chest pouch the rear lens was getting water on it, as I leave it open when in use as I'm always taking it in and out (it has a zip closure). I think in this situation it would have been better to have it mounted horizontally, sliding in/out from the side with a flap closure, so you can get it out without having rain falling on the lens. Or somehow make and attach a rear lens cover, though then its something else to do before using it.

I haven't alot of experience hunting in close bush (except with a mate with a dog, which made it MUCH easier!), but yesterday I was in rolling terrain, with tussock and matagouri, so I was often taking a few steps, then scanning, then taking a few more steps, scanning, looking through the rifle scope, so the thermal was continually being taken out and put away. I ended up ditching the chest harness into my pack (I wasn't using the binos much anyway) and just using the "belly" pocket on my fleece swandri for the thermal.

Incidentally, there were 4 times that I could see what I could identify as a hare through the thermal, in part cover (tussock/matagouri) that I could not for the life of me see through the scope.