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I've always enjoyed predator hunting but hated the waiting for clear bright nights or trying to call during daylight hours. Finally bit the bullet this year and bought a thermal but had only hunted maybe 10 hours on it so far. Tonight I called 7 sets and finally got a dog to come in from 3/4 mile out and watched it run in the whole way only to hang up in some thick junk 200 yards out and never present a shot. Frustrating.

Leftover deer carcasses from this hunting season got thrown out the other day, so I saved the bait pile for last. Crept in real quiet like and scanned, saw movement but it was obscured. Sat tight for 15 minutes and out popped one dog. Sent a 55gr soft point into her at about 100 yards. After the shot, a second one that had been obscured busted out from cover but paused to look at his flopping companion for just a second too long. Big male took one in the chest 150 yards just a few seconds after the first, quick bang flop. First solo double and first dogs with thermal, I'm just tickled.

Only bad part: I didn't have time to hit the record button so there is no video to upload.

Takeaways: predator hunting is fun. Buy a thermal. No, really, stop thinking and just do it. You don't even need a top of the line one. Also, we could use a  predator hunting forum as I know there are a lot of hunters here.

Awesome.

What thermal did you end up getting? One channel I watch on Youtube has the guy using a Trijicon unit, which is probably north of $4K.

Pulsar Thermion XM30. Definitely not as sharp of an image as the fancier models but detects well a long ways out. For the money spent I'm very pleased.

Yea, nothing escapes from thermal. I have a HMT with a PVS14 and I'll never hunt without it. I'll probably buy a dedicated scope in a year or two.

Good job OP. I was able to get a big male last night. I saw a few others as well, but the wind was never in my favor.

That sounds like a fun and versatile setup. Initially I was going to go the PVS14 route but checking out other people's stuff changed my mind. I'm sure I'll still end up with NVGs sooner rather than later, this just fit my current uses better. How big is a big male down there? The one in my post was about 35ish I'd suppose which is about topped out size wise around here.

Strongly considered the XP50 and truth be told will probably regret not going with something fancier but time will tell. A couple buddies really like their Trail2 LRFs but that was a bit beyond the "just dipping a toe" budget.

Nice Job.
Hope to see some more pics and maybe some videos of death from you in the future.
Enjoy your scope and don't make the mistake of looking through a 640 res scope.
I have an XG50 now and it's an awesome scope.

Here's the video from the hunt. Big meaning full grown, nothing monster, but full grown.

Nice vid. Did you shoot with laser/PVS or the thermal? Hard to see it with the PVS in the vid.

I shot it with the laser. I do all my shooting with a laser or RDS. Dedicated thermal scope some time in short future.

The video quality of the ANVRS and subsequent editing in shitty software really kill the resolution and adds a lot of garbage and artifacts.

Cool vid! First dog sure took his time coming in.

That first one just doing his thing, I didn't use any calls at all. He was looking for a snack and I just waited and waited.  The wind was hitting my back, so my scent was going right towards him. I think he smelled me once or twice.

Good kills, OP.

I belonged to a hunt club a while back, and had a thermal at the time.
They would not allow night hunting, probably because they were afraid someone might poach a deer.
It was fun riding around the roads, but I wanted more.

I'll get another thermal at some point, and find a place to use it hunting yotes at night.