Looks like I’m gonna have to get me one of these thermal drones before next year…..If hunters want to exhaust all options in finding their deer then there’s no need in them having to call someone else to do it if I’m already there with the dogs. I guess we’ll have to adapt. Don’t hate the player, hate the game……

Better have a big pile of money laying around. I looked about getting one of those spray drones and got sticker shock when I saw the price. Needless to say I didn’t buy one.

How much folks gonna pay for a drone locator?

Start out around $5500 I think.

I meant the fee for locating the deer with the drone.

Yeah they're dang sure expensive.....I think the thermal drones are in the 15-20K range....That's my biggest concern is buying one and then the powers that be deciding that they're illegal to use.....

The one we have for the Sheriff’s office was almost $20k. It has 8 batteries and maybe 20min flight time per set of batteries. When we were using it to search for that drowning victim a couple weeks ago, we spent more time charging batteries then flying. It would take around 45 mins to charge all the batteries with the inverter in our pilots truck. That’s another added cost. Also you have to complete a certification course to be able to fly it. You’d have to recover a lot of deer to justify that type of money spent. Good luck if you decide to take on that challenge.

I don’t see how they are legal, or how they will remain legal.

They will be banned before long

I don’t either. You gotta draw the line somewhere and people are always trying to push the envelope.

I think they are a great tool for recovering an animal that would most likely not be found. However, I know that there is or will be people who use them for the wrong reasons and I think this will cause the issues of legalities. I say this because when we were trying to locate that drowning victim the first night with ours, I had no idea we had so many deer in the marshes along the river. The first thing I thought of was how easy it would be to load the boat with them by knowing exactly where they are.

Watching a deer in real time on a cell cam at a timed corn feeder is a far, far more effective way to remotely pattern and kill deer. With a drone you’ve got to be there. I don’t think it’s nearly as big of an advantage as cell cams.

They’ve came a long way. Good if you got hardwoods or a field, I just don’t think it’ll be able to seen through a pine canopy on timber company land that a lot of us hunt on. Guess it’s just another tool in the toolbox if you’re a tracker though.

The part 107 FAA cert isn’t hard.

I'd like to see one of CNC's graphs depicting the amount of time hunters spend actually tracking a shot deer before reaching for the phone to call in a dog. Preferably, stratified into hunter age classes... 16-25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-55, 56-65, 65+

That’s just wrong. 😂

Would seldom need dogs or drones if folks would just take shots they can make instead of randomly flinging lead in hopes of hitting something so they can have someone come find it, maybe.

That’ll never be true no matter how much folks practice or try to take good shots……We shoot an estimated 300,000 deer each season……Even if we only ran a 5% margin of error…..which would be an outstanding rate….. meaning that 95% of folks make a perfect shot and recovery……that still leaves 15,000 wounded and unrecovered…..One tracker might be able to cover 100 of those in a season running wide open……so do the math and that’s enough wounded deer to keep 150 trackers busy……

That’s not true. At least not in all cases. Some yes. Others no. Things happen in hunting scenarios that you can’t plan or prepare for. And in the case with my sons last week, lead wasn’t just haphazardly slung. He had a good angle and placed the shot exactly where he should. The bullet didn’t perform like they do 99.9% of the time. There’s definitely a place for assisted recovery, whether dogs or technology.

Y’all watch the new YouTube video by David Ellis about the big 10pt. Ole boy shot the buck and got a dog. There was just a few drops of blood. The dog bayed the deer and ole boy was able to shoot it and kill it. At the end you can see a little flesh wound on the front leg and one of the kids ask if that’s where the first shot hit it. No bones appeared to be broke in the leg. In my opinion the deer would have been fine if the dog wouldn’t have bayed it.

There is obviously the potential for a problem even if you do everything right and dogs and drones are blessings then. But based on what I read on here something like what happened to MBrocks son is very much an exception, not the rule. I am talking about the folks who say pick up a rifle they are unfamiliar with, have no clue where it’s zeroed and take a 250 yard Hail Mary or see a deer head, guess where the body is and blast away. Those are a couple of the most recent examples right here. Be honest CNC, how many of your tracks are due to unforeseeable circumstances and how many are because somebody really really needed some horns to post on Facebook. My guess would be about 1/100.