Well, I hope you're right. We need more coyote hunters. They are recruiting more anti-hunters every year. If we want to stop seeing states eliminate contests, then trapping, dogs, etc. on the way to completely banning it altogether, we will have to have more people involved in the sport. If as you believe thermals create more coyote hunters, then thank God.
There's no shortage of people that want to see it banned. Way more than there are coyote hunters. Eventually all hunting will be banned. But that's another topic altogether. There ain't enough thermals in the world to keep the sport from dying eventually. But that's neither here nor there. I doubt it'll happen in our lifetime.
I would say if atmospherics are optimal and the they aren't freezing down, a good trapper is damn near effective as a chopper. A trap works 24/7 when you're not there, when you're sleeping, and when the chopper isn't airborne.
We'll have a massive system reset before all hunting is banned, and when that happens only by hunting will we survive.
I'm just going by what I've seen in some of the cheaper optics. And by cheap I don't mean cheap. I've seen a skunk through an ATN that I couldn't tell was a skunk. Jackrabbits look funky in that scope as well. Or at least to me it did. If that's all a person has I assume they'd learn what's what. But to me it was difficult to positively identify animals over a certain distance away.
I still use a light to this day except it's no bigger than 5 or 6 inches long and brighter than what we thought was "good" equipment back then. I know if we had thermal back then, we'd have used it! We spent countless hours in the winter trapping, calling and spotlighting. Adding something like a thermal to the mix, mom may have never seen any of us ever again! Just a few weeks ago, I was able to look through a thermal for the first time. A good friend of mine recently got one. It wasn't a top of the line deal or anything but HOLY COW! What a game changer! Reckon unless I hit the lottery or stumble upon a pile of money someday that's not needed elsewhere, I may look into getting myself one. For now I'll stick with a light as it's worked great for over 40 years, but no doubt, If a feller wanted to be serious about hunting coyote, a thermal would be a most useful tool!I don't think anyone was whining about the price of thermal that I've noticed. If anything I was griping. Not about how expensive it is but how inexpensive it is. The talk of banning hunting came up. And along those lines that could go hand in hand. If the game warden writes enough tickets for people mistaking a deer sticking its head out of the grass for a coyote, that will do it. Won't nobody be shooting coyotes at night.
