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Drones

bcsportsman

bcsportsman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2017
Messages
216
So I know that I may p!$$ in some people's Cheerios but it is 100% legal to scout with in my state. So if you do not have any good criticism please keep it to yourself.

In the parts of Louisiana I hunt we have very thick briar patches. There's are multiple area that may have upward of 40 or 50 acres of undisturbed briars with just a cluster of trees here and there. I have had great success entering in these little cluster of trees. And many times can see more activity at others I cannot access. I want to take a drone and fly through my areas and find high traffic areas through them. Plus find the easiest path to some of these clusters in the middle. Have any of you used drones before and which ones would you recommend for this task?

I brought this here to saddle hunter because I feel as if we are a tighter group of people who can respect one another more than what I will get from archery talk.
 
Im not sure if its legal or not in Georgia but you can get some pretty cool footage with a drone. I could see where it'd be beneficial, I've tried to walk some briar patches here and those things are boogers.
 
Wish I had a drone. I scout my areas and my neighbor's for bottlenecks and other natural or man made features that lead onto my properties that I would not of known about.
I think drones are good a good idea.
 
bcsportsman said:
So I know that I may p!$$ in some people's Cheerios but it is 100% legal to scout with in my state. So if you do not have any good criticism please keep it to yourself.

In the parts of Louisiana I hunt we have very thick briar patches. There's are multiple area that may have upward of 40 or 50 acres of undisturbed briars with just a cluster of trees here and there. I have had great success entering in these little cluster of trees. And many times can see more activity at others I cannot access. I want to take a drone and fly through my areas and find high traffic areas through them. Plus find the easiest path to some of these clusters in the middle. Have any of you used drones before and which ones would you recommend for this task?

I brought this here to saddle hunter because I feel as if we are a tighter group of people who can respect one another more than what I will get from archery talk.
Click to expand...
I think just because something is legal or illegal doesn’t mean that it’s right or wrong. I believe drone scouting is just simply not fair. If you do wanna scout with the drone, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t wanna take dan infalts strategy and solely hunt bedded bucks. Send the drone, see if the bucks in it’s bed, and plan your hunt from there.
 
Nick Grider said:
I think just because something is legal or illegal doesn’t mean that it’s right or wrong. I believe drone scouting is just simply not fair. If you do wanna scout with the drone, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t wanna take dan infalts strategy and solely hunt bedded bucks. Send the drone, see if the bucks in it’s bed, and plan your hunt from there.
Click to expand...
IMO there is a huge difference between scouting landforms with drones vs scouting animals with drones.
 
Nick Grider said:
I believe drone scouting is just simply not fair. If you do wanna scout with the drone, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t wanna take dan infalts strategy and solely hunt bedded bucks.
Click to expand...

I think you may be overestimating a drones capability. You could use a drone in one of three ways. The first would be to collect, download and process images to create aerial imagery/mapping mosaics. The second would be to use a live camera to see and get a feel for the vegetation/topography and maybe take some pictures of what you are seeing. The third would be to spot live deer.

Regarding the first method. I use drone imagery from some seriously expensive drones a lot in my profession and it would be a very rare occasion and only under perfect conditions that you could actually see a buck in it's bed in the imagery. The imagery you would get from a drone is better than the Hi-Res aerial imagery that you can download on line or can see in Google Earth but, not good enough to actually see a deer bedded in the woods. The problem with the online stuff is that Hi-Res imagery isn't available everywhere and where it is available it is usually several years old. For instance one property I hunt was logged last year. I would love to get one of our drone subcontractors to fly it and provide me updated imagery so that I can see the edges, transition areas, etc. that have changed since 2008 (the last leaf off Hi-Res imagery available online for this area).

As far as the second method. I don't think it's much different from an ethical standpoint than the first. Having Hi-res imagery that we can obtain GPS coordinates on, download to our phones/GPS, etc. seems like a bigger advantage than a couple of pictures snapped at random altitudes/angles.

As far as seeing live animals, you could probably do this in open fields, and possibly in light woods if the animal was moving but, I can't imagine any practical way that you could fly in under the trees, spot a buck in it's bed, then sneak in and hunt that buck, drones just don't really work that way.

I think the OP was referring to one of the first two methods.
 
Nick Grider said:
I think just because something is legal or illegal doesn’t mean that it’s right or wrong. I believe drone scouting is just simply not fair. If you do wanna scout with the drone, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t wanna take dan infalts strategy and solely hunt bedded bucks. Send the drone, see if the bucks in it’s bed, and plan your hunt from there.
Click to expand...

Because unlike most of the country deer around here rarely use the same bed. Everything is bed and everywhere is browse. My elevation does not change more than 5ft excluding te few ditches and one bayou we have over 2500 acres. Some of this stuff is impenetrable. So if I can fly over and find ways to access those spots that's what I am aiming to do
 
A friend of mine was getting good pictures of some nice bucks then all of a sudden the area went dry. He couldn't figure out what happened or where the deer went until one day he got his answer, one of his trail cameras snapped a picture of a drone about 5 feet off of the ground.... He showed me the picture on his phone. Now it's open season on drones at his place...:mad:
 
So back to the original question. Any body know of a good kind of drone to use for this?
 
bcsportsman said:
So I know that I may p!$$ in some people's Cheerios but it is 100% legal to scout with in my state. So if you do not have any good criticism please keep it to yourself.

In the parts of Louisiana I hunt we have very thick briar patches. There's are multiple area that may have upward of 40 or 50 acres of undisturbed briars with just a cluster of trees here and there. I have had great success entering in these little cluster of trees. And many times can see more activity at others I cannot access. I want to take a drone and fly through my areas and find high traffic areas through them. Plus find the easiest path to some of these clusters in the middle. Have any of you used drones before and which ones would you recommend for this task?

I brought this here to saddle hunter because I feel as if we are a tighter group of people who can respect one another more than what I will get from archery talk.
Click to expand...
If it's legal go for it. I use trail cameras. What you are doing is getting a live view of your hunting area. I think that great.I don't know if it's legal were I live but I probably crash it anyway. lol
 
bcsportsman said:
So back to the original question. Any body know of a good kind of drone to use for this?
Click to expand...

I would look at the DJI Mavik.
It folds up nice and small, has a decent range, decent battery life, good quality camera, and can be used with apps like DroneDeploy to make 2D and 3D maps.
The 2D maps can be overlaid in google earth, which would be convenient for areas where sat photos are several years old or big changes have happened since the last google earth image.


I have always thought that, if I ever filmed for a YouTube channel, I would do a 3D map of the immediate area of my setups for walkthroughs and explanations of tactics.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If you're flying drones, please make sure you are flying in accordance with FAA guidelines. I think the most likely offence would be flying within 5 miles of an airport. There are apps that will show you where you can fly. You would be surprised how many small rural airfields there are.

Figured I'd give my 2 cents from a pilot.

I have a few smaller cheap drones, they are a blast fly, I would be worried about spooking deer. Also I think the drone sport is growing at an incredibly pace. I think we will only start seeing more of them.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
If it’s legal I see nothing wrong with using drones.

Some areas are so dense it’s hard to find entries to get boots on the ground. Drones can find these access points.

Nothing wrong with using the tools you have as long as they are legal.
 
I think that the only time there could be an ethical question is if the drone is used day of the hunt.
Many states already have laws on the books for taking game with the assistance of a drone, so check your local regs. Also, most federal land like the national forest service and national grasslands already prohibit drone use on the land at any point in the year.

I, personally, would use one for post season and summer scouting in a heartbeat. I consider it no less ethical, in that situation, than google earth.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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