Ivividly recall the first time I saw a thermal device used in the field. I was on an outfitted Utah elk hunt, and as we were driving two track mountain roads back to the lodge after an unsuccessful all-day hunt, my guide stopped in the dark. He killed the headlights, pulled out a thermal viewer and grinned.
“This is gonna tell us where we hunt in the morning,” he said. As he scanned a mountainside meadow with the digital device, dozens of grazing elk glowed like ghosts on the screen.
It felt like cheating, intruding on animals that have grown accustomed to the protection of darkness. But the activity was perfectly legal. Utah’s regulations hadn’t caught up with the new devices, which were so novel at the time that few…
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Game & Fish East (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025