Low End Gear And Research Equipment

[Catmandoo]

Redbone, does the dog chew on the tennis balls?

 

I just checked other equipment for height determination.  That pole is a good price.  The telescopic builder poles, aluminum or fiberglass start out at over $70. I saw a 13' telescopic pole on sale for $46.  The painter pole has them beat, plus you can paint and wallpaper too.

Edited March 31, 2019 by Catmandoo

[Redbone]

1 hour ago, Catmandoo said:

Redbone, does the dog chew on the tennis balls?

 

I just checked other equipment for height determination.  That pole is a good price.  The telescopic builder poles, aluminum or fiberglass start out at over $70. I saw a 13' telescopic pole on sale for $46.  The painter pole has them beat, plus you can paint and wallpaper too.

My Redbone Coonhound (Redbone - get it?) is getting very old and doesn't chew on anything but his own food. He had 16 teeth removed last year.

I do keep it out of reach of my son's beagle. She usually has a rope toy in her mouth when she feels the need to chew.

 

I had looked at other poles and noticed the same thing with high prices. Menards does have this same pole in shorter versions which would be easier to carry around, but as you can see, we've already needed 11 feet. I keep mine in my Suburban and only grab it when needed.

 

The flaw with my cheap poles is that you need to be careful not to twist them too tight or you can't break them loose to extend them. Mine were in a flood in 2016 so that didn't help. I originally used them as temporary poles to hold up my camper awning, but they were not well suited and my awning got destroyed during a storm anyway.

[Madison5716]

Redbone, very smart! Great idea!

[Catmandoo]

I consider cell phone cameras low end, very low end.  Pay attention to the below comments.  I do not have these items so your mileage will vary.

 

Possible help for your techniques might, repeat might be found  at 2 sites.  Topaz labs has something called Topaz Gigapixel AI.  Claimed to make your phone camera images look better and bigger.

 

FocusStacker app at georgedouvos.com         for persons who may not understand depth of field and hyperfocal distances.

 

http://www.georgedouvos.com/douvos/OptimumCS-Pro%3B_TrueDoF-Pro%3B_Focus_Stacker.html

 

( I can see it now, really big, really bad blobsquatches )

[SWWASAS]

 

This is not low end but serious gear for someone interested.      2 hour endurance.      They get this because it is a hybrid with a gasoline motor making electrical power.    They also have a good selection of cameras to use.   

 

http://store.walkera.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=650

[hiflier]

Hmmm. Maybe someday if I happen to have $25,000 burning a hole in my pocket  

[SWWASAS]

As I have found I have about 3 times that tied up in my airplane's present value but zero results using it to look for BF.   I suspect a noisy drone would be less successful  than the airplane.   On the other hand boots on the ground does not cost much of anything and that has given positive results.    Throwing money at the problem has not been proven to work.   

[gigantor]

$40 at Amazon

 

 

 

[NCBFr]

I have always felt if you want to track a BF in the dark (or even light in heavy woods) this is by far the best tool for the job.  Far better than any FLIR on the market.

[SWWASAS]

I am not much of a tracker but have discovered after finding a few footprints,  how difficult it is.    You can see broken ground cover and follow it for a while but it always peters out leaving you maybe a few yards from the footprint.  I don't know if they don't like muddy feet (I don't either) or if they are trackers themselves and very aware that if they leave footprint sign they can be followed.  I think they are trackers just because of the extraordinary lengths they go not to leave prints.      Of course the dream is to follow the footprints back to wherever they sleep and gather.    Based on nothing but hunch,  if I found a trackway leading someplace I would think I was being led into a trap.  Especially if it was someplace remote.  I don't care what the terrain is,  easy or difficult,  they can move faster than we can.   If it gets difficult, they just go quadrupedal and move away more rapidly than we can follow.  

 

  As I write this I keep having flashbacks of the time I kept advancing on a BF I heard back in the trees up against a ridge line.   I started trying to drive it into the open without cover.    I would move towards it and hear the thuds as it moved tree to tree away from me.  With the ridge behind it at some point I expected it to have no choice but to show itself.   It realized that too and growled at me.   One or two seconds after the growl, I heard a huge crack as a tree was broken off behind me.   As I was advancing on one I knew was there, another was advancing on me from behind.   The one that growled probably saved my life.   It gives me shudders to think about it.  I said, "OK OK, I get it.  I am backing out"    I backed out as quick as I could and decided to call it a day and leave the area.    Fortunately this area was next to a clear cut so I withdrew to the clear cut  to make my way back to my truck.   I kept nervously looking behind but they did not break the treeline to follow.     That seemed to be the turning point with that small group.    They continued to be unfriendly, until they left the area when it was completely logged. 

[NathanFooter]

On 4/28/2019 at 5:48 AM, NCBFr said:

I have always felt if you want to track a BF in the dark (or even light in heavy woods) this is by far the best tool for the job.  Far better than any FLIR on the market.

 

  I have owned both small and large parabolic dishes and they certainly have value in the field but FLIR cameras ( even the cheap Scout TK  for 500$ ) blow all other tools out of the water when it comes to identifying and tracking a subject in the forest. There is a large body of information that indicates that they creep up on camps to observe humans and that in most cases they are very quiet in the way they go about it,  refer to Bart Cutino's footage as an example.

 

 With most audio events you don't know what your are hearing or the subject is so far away that you can't pinpoint the exact location it is with a parabolic.   They are very helpful for isolating a source sound, if you are on a ridge you can identify if the vocal is coming from a ridge or the bottom of the valley and if the subject is moving any real distance.  I have detected far more wildlife with thermal imaging cameras over the years than have with any audio device, this is coming from a audio nut.    

[Huntster]

On 4/28/2019 at 8:36 AM, SWWASAS said:

.........As I write this I keep having flashbacks of the time I kept advancing on a BF.......

 

Did you ever try "gifting" with this family or group?

 

I'm wondering if that approach might be more likely to lead to visual sightings.

[SWWASAS]

1 hour ago, Huntster said:

 

Did you ever try "gifting" with this family or group?

 

I'm wondering if that approach might be more likely to lead to visual sightings.

I did but winter set in and I could not get in to  restock the location.   They took the offering once.     It hung there for about a month before they got to it.    That next spring was when things went south with them and they zapped me.    I was about 1/4 mile from the gifting location when that happened.   I think I got there too late.   If I had beat the logging by a couple of years, things might have been very different and given me time to interact with them.   Or I might have ticked them off sooner and got myself eaten.    

[Huntster]

3 minutes ago, SWWASAS said:

I did but winter set in and I could not get in to  restock the location.   They took the offering once.     It hung there for about a month before they got to it.........

 

Was it a food gift? If not, what was it? Did they ever leave anything for you?

[SWWASAS]

It was peanut butter in a plastic bag hanging from a high tree limb.   Small critters could not get to it.    The bag was basically intact so I doubt that a bear got to it.   They did not leave anything at the gifting site but did leave that one glyph for me on a stump.     I sort of have issues with food gifting, especially when it contains sugar like most peanut butter does.    I hate to think what I might be doing to their teeth.