A few days ago, I learned a new phrase to hunt by: if it has a neck, it ain't a pig. Simple. Memorable. And once you're staring through a thermal scope at active grazing land full of expensive livestock, potentially life-saving.
This particular hunt took place outside Nacogdoches, Texas, on a working cattle pasture. When I say "active," I mean we saw way more cows than hogs all night—and every single one of those cows was worth about $5,000. The kind of money that makes you very, very careful about what you're aiming at when all you can see is a white blob of heat in the darkness.
Because here's the thing about thermal scopes: they show you heat, but they don't tell you what that heat belongs to. That part's still on you.
The Guides and Their Backgrounds
I was hunting with two guides who came up in completely different worlds.
Trevor Kalata grew up hunting hogs, started chasing pigs back in sixth grade, but his true passion is duck hunting. His experience is all brush, close quarters, and animals that don't stand still for anything.
His buddy Scott Ehrler is a Wyoming transplant who recently moved to Texas. He cut his teeth on coyotes, deer, and elk, which naturally meant hunts with long distances, open ground, and the kind of shooting where you've got time to think.
Despite their different backgrounds, both men hammered home the same principles all night: keep the noise to a minimum, slow down, know what you're looking at, and for the love of God, don't let your equipment make decisions for you.
Grazing Land
Hunting hogs around cattle forces you to pay attention in ways an empty field never will. Cows bunch up, calves can look like hogs from the right angle, and heat signatures overlap like a thermal Rorschach test. And if you're using a lower-quality thermal scope where detail starts disappearing, that's when people make very expensive mistakes.
That "if it has a neck, it ain't a pig" rule exists because hogs carry their heads low and are physically incapable of stretching their necks up to look around like a cow. Their shoulders are heavy, and they move differently—stockier, lower to the ground, more purposeful. With a clean thermal image like the one provided by the Thermion 2 XP50's high-resolution 640x480 microbolometer sensor, it's easy to spot the difference between the squarer, lankier cows and the shorter, rounder pigs.
On lower-quality thermal scopes, however, everything starts looking like a hog-shaped blob of heat. And that's when things get interesting in the worst possible way.
Weather
Thermal hunting doesn't always happen on perfect nights. Wind, humidity, rain, and temperature all mess with how animals show up through your scope.
Some nights, everything pops with crystal clarity. Other nights, it looks like someone smeared Vaseline all over your Germanium lens and called it good.
That's where understanding your gear matters. A good thermal scope gives you options, but it's still on you to know when to adjust and when to leave things alone.
Coyotes, Distance, and the Art of Passing
Coyotes were moving through the area too. We spotted a couple at range, and Scott took a shot at one but couldn't get a confirmed kill.
That happens. More importantly, it was a reminder that just because you can see something doesn't mean you should shoot it.
Thermal scopes let you detect animals way past the distance most people should be shooting at night. Everyone has a comfort zone, and that zone doesn't magically expand because the thermal image looks clear. Even with the Thermion 2 XP50's detection range of 1,970 yards, that doesn't mean you have any business pulling the trigger anywhere near that far. Detection range just tells you something is out there—it doesn't tell you the shot is smart, ethical, or inside your personal limits.
The Armadillo Incident
Coyotes weren't the only non-hog problem that night. One of the guides told a story about a group of hunters who almost pulled off a perfectly timed synchronized shot on what everyone swore was a hog. Fingers were already taking up slack on the triggers when someone finally said, "Hold up... that's an armadillo."
Funny now. Wouldn't have been funny if it had been a cow.
When something that small can get mistaken for a hundred-pound animal, that should tell you how fast things can go sideways through thermal if you're not paying attention. Thermal compresses detail. Add adrenaline, a little trigger happiness, and the excitement of seeing heat move across your screen, and yeah—mistakes happen faster than you'd think.
Image Clarity Is On You
A lot of folks treat thermal scopes like point-and-shoot cameras. They're not.
If the image looks bad, nine times out of ten the scope just isn't set up right. The objective lens might not be focused. The diopter might not match your eye. The brightness and contrast could be off for the conditions. I've seen people start cursing their equipment when all it really needed was a couple degrees of adjustment.
Thermal conditions can change throughout the night too, so what looked fine an hour ago might need a tweak now. Any one of those things can make a good thermal scope look mediocre, and taking a moment to dial it in beats the hassle of explaining to a landowner why you just shot his prize heifer.
Sensitivity Modes
There's a common misconception that cranking up the sensitivity on a Pulsar device makes a thermal scope sharper.
It does not.
Sensitivity modes like Normal, High, and Ultra exist to help with bad weather conditions—fog, rain, high humidity, and thermal crossover. They help with detection and target separation when contrast drops, but they don't magically add detail to what you're seeing.
Most nights, Normal mode works just fine. When conditions get ugly, higher sensitivity and the smoothing filter can help settle the image down. Knowing when to adjust matters more than running everything maxed out like you're overclocking a gaming PC.
Conclusion
Thermal scopes are powerful tools, but if you rely on them without trusting your own instincts, you'll pick up some brand-new bad habits real fast. The kind that guarantee you don't get invited back for another hog eradication run at Farmer John's cattle ranch.
Grazing land has a way of forcing you to slow down, because rushing shots around livestock is how people get into trouble. A thermal scope will show you heat moving in the dark, but it won't tell you whether pulling the trigger is a smart idea—especially once adrenaline starts creeping in. Trigger happiness is real, and so is the temptation to act the second you see a white blob shift on your screen.
Used the right way, a thermal scope helps you do the job cleanly and keeps livestock safe. Used the wrong way, it becomes an expensive piece of gear you're leaning on while trying to explain yourself to a landowner who's staring at a very dead, very valuable cow.
As Trevor said: if it has a neck, it ain't a pig. Remember that at the right moment, and it can be the difference between getting invited back and having your number quietly deleted.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can you tell a hog from a cow through a thermal scope?
Hogs carry their heads low and do not show a visible neck when they move. Cows raise and stretch their necks frequently, especially when alert. Body shape also matters: hogs are shorter, rounder, and heavier in the shoulders, while cattle appear taller and more angular.
Why is hunting hogs around cattle more dangerous?
Heat signatures overlap, animals bunch together, and calves move unpredictably. Through thermal, this can compress detail and make identification harder, increasing the risk of mistaking livestock for game.
Does higher thermal sensitivity make the image sharper?
No. Sensitivity modes help with detection in poor conditions like fog, rain, or humidity, but they do not add detail. Running sensitivity too high can actually reduce clarity if conditions do not require it.
What causes animals to look like indistinct blobs in thermal?
Poor focus, incorrect diopter settings, improper brightness or contrast, bad weather, or lower-resolution sensors can all reduce detail. In most cases, the issue is setup rather than the thermal unit itself.
Should you shoot at animals detected at extreme thermal distances?
No. Detection range only shows that something is present. It does not mean the target is identifiable, ethical to shoot, or within safe and responsible shooting distance.
