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Thermal drone herd analysis…..

Rous14

Rous14

PMA Member
Saw both Winke and Don Higgins have a company out of Missouri out to their farms recently and flew a drone around and did an analysis of the deer herd on their farm. Buck to doe ratio, deer density, even number of mature bucks. Super interesting imo. Can see where the deer are bedding. I know this technology isn’t new, just hadn’t seen anyone put it to use in this way exactly. Anyone done this before? Not sure what the guy charges but I emailed him to find out more. Would love to have this kind of data in January right after season is over.
 
IowaBowHunter1983 said:
I consulted on a farm for a guy that had it done. I found it very useful in designing his farm plan. It was pretty fascinating. Also saw where all the deer were on neighbors as well. Useful for sure.
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Could definitely see where it would be helpful for designing a farm. Would also be really neat to do a before habitat improvement analysis and then again after a guy had made a bunch of changes to see how many more deer you are holding, benefits of the habitat improvement etc.
Also for realtors I could see it being a great way to market scientific data of how many deer are on a particular farm, how many mature bucks etc….
Lots of ways for it to be super interesting/beneficial
 
Rous14 said:
Could definitely see where it would be helpful for designing a farm. Would also be really neat to do a before habitat improvement analysis and then again after a guy had made a bunch of changes to see how many more deer you are holding, benefits of the habitat improvement etc.
Also for realtors I could see it being a great way to market scientific data of how many deer are on a particular farm, how many mature bucks etc….
Lots of ways for it to be super interesting/beneficial
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I'm not sure I buy their ability to identify mature bucks. That doesn't change my opinion that it is very useful tho.
 
IowaBowHunter1983 said:
I'm not sure I buy their ability to identify mature bucks. That doesn't change my opinion that it is very useful tho.
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Agreed, not sure how they’d know that. Guessing if you did it while antlers were still on in winter you might have a decent idea based on the rack and personal history possibly
 
Regarding being able to discern big bucks...I saw footage where they were zoomed way in on the heads of bedded bucks and you could literally see the raw pedicels. A close up view of a larger diameter pedicel would be a pretty reliable indicator to me.
 
Daver said:
Regarding being able to discern big bucks...I saw footage where they were zoomed way in on the heads of bedded bucks and you could literally see the raw pedicels. A close up view of a larger diameter pedicel would be a pretty reliable indicator to me.
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Saw that too. Guessing thats how they are estimating mature bucks. Not exact science but can probably get close. If a guy did it before they dropped their antlers though then you’d have a pretty good gauge of age structure on a given farm which would be pretty valuable info especially for a realtor that was looking to sell a farm. Just really interesting all the information it could give you. I’d really like to see where and how the deer are bedding on various farms. How many truly bed in switchgrass. How many are bedded up against some form of side cover vs just kinda open timbered areas. How effective are my hinge cuts/tsi areas in relation to the areas on my farm I haven’t done any of that yet. Not sure what the cost is but I’m definitely inquiring
 
I booked him for the first week of January '25. I'm looking forward to the intel on what Rous14 is curioius about in his last post. Jack seems like a really good egg.
 
bwese said:
I booked him for the first week of January '25. I'm looking forward to the intel on what Rous14 is curioius about in his last post. Jack seems like a really good egg.
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What's the going rate for something like this?
 
I mean I think it's cool and all, to see how deer would be using a property. And I can see it helping possibly market a farm.

It's just......their taking all of the mystery out of it, people dont have to scout anymore because we got 20 cell cammeras running, when my dad first started taking me hunting it was always a surprise what showed up. It was all part of the hunt. Now it's about making sure there's a mature deer on the farm before someone buys the farm. It's getting so commercialized and having to know every single detail.

Maybe I'm old and grouchy(not even 30) it just seems to me people want to take the fun out of hunting. I like boots on the ground scouting, glassing from a distance taking inventory when the late season comes etc etc etc. In my experience cell's cams only tell a fraction of the story.
 
Trapshooter1 said:
I mean I think it's cool and all, to see how deer would be using a property. And I can see it helping possibly market a farm.

It's just......their taking all of the mystery out of it, people dont have to scout anymore because we got 20 cell cammeras running, when my dad first started taking me hunting it was always a surprise what showed up. It was all part of the hunt. Now it's about making sure there's a mature deer on the farm before someone buys the farm. It's getting so commercialized and having to know every single detail.

Maybe I'm old and grouchy(not even 30) it just seems to me people want to take the fun out of hunting. I like boots on the ground scouting, glassing from a distance taking inventory when the late season comes etc etc etc. In my experience cell's cams only tell a fraction of the story.
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I think one could make a solid argument that cell cameras have been the biggest game changer for a hunters success, and most impactful reduction of mature bucks over the past 25 years. We've blurred the lines IMO of "management" and hunting. At least with non-cell cameras you don't receive "real time" data. It's all history. I love the idea of thermal drones, I hate the direction it could take "hunting".

The mystery you talk about is something I really thought about this past season, which is why I (personal decision) chose not to utilize cell cams. Heck, I didn't even run cams.
 
hesseu said:
I think one could make a solid argument that cell cameras have been the biggest game changer for a hunters success, and most impactful reduction of mature bucks over the past 25 years. We've blurred the lines IMO of "management" and hunting. At least with non-cell cameras you don't receive "real time" data. It's all history. I love the idea of thermal drones, I hate the direction it could take "hunting".

The mystery you talk about is something I really thought about this past season, which is why I (personal decision) chose not to utilize cell cams. Heck, I didn't even run cams.
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Definitely hear what you and trapshooter are saying and it’s something I’ve thought a lot about too. I think on this very forum I’ve said that I’d be happy if the states made cell cameras illegal during season and it wasn’t a very popular opinion (which is fine, everyone has a different view on where the line should be drawn). Totally agree w you that they have been the biggest game changer for success and I don’t think there’s a close second. I use them and debate every fall whether or not to just go back to regular cams.
For me, this drone service IF done AFTER the season like I’m planning to do feels “ok” to me. Will it give me an advantage, yea I think so. But for whatever reason the fact that it’s not real time info during season just feels better to me but certainly can see the opposite viewpoint too.
 
FWIW, I get the reservations on the ever advancing technology. FWIW, I have chosen not to use cell cams for this reason, I think they are a bridge too far personally. (Note - I do use them for security purposes and we do sometimes see deer on them, but their locations are not where we would hunt, etc.)

I do really like regular trail cams to help identify specific deer, but we mostly don't run them hard during season. When we do check them in season, it is infrequent and not used for "todays hunt". I would not have a problem with a drone survey...AFTER the season is over...but I probably won't do one at my place anyway.
 
hesseu said:
The mystery you talk about is something I really thought about this past season, which is why I (personal decision) chose not to utilize cell cams. Heck, I didn't even run cams.
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Agree 100%. I don't run cell cameras either for the same reason.

I do enjoy running cameras however, just for an inventory and past data purposes. Still get the kid at Christmas feeling pulling those cards..
 
Not to derail the thread here BUT

For the Iowa guys hollering about cell cams and too much hunter success due to them, just wait until Crossguns come to town. Cell cams have basically zero impact on general hunter population success comparatively. A Ravin is 10000000x more devastating than any cell cam, bait or not, ever will be.

If I had to choose in IL, I'd rather have every person get 2 free cell cams with the purchase of a tag (especially if they were Spypoints) than free use of a crossgun all season.
 
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