My experience and hunt with Tom Austin Predator StrikeForce and Garvin Young

V

Victor_TNVC

New member
Just wanted to start this thread and talk about my absolute incredible experience with Tom Austin who many of you know from Predator StrikeForce along with 3 time world champion predator hunter Garvin Young.

Just got back from 3 days hanging out with these gents enabled as Pat Rogers from EAG Tactical states to his students... "Learning has Occurred". Well with these 2 gents, my learning curve went up DRAMATICALLY over the 3 days we hunted Yotes.

I have MUCH more to come from this thread talking about the gear and equipment utilized for this hunt. I also have a video to show (going to take some time with that as we have a bunch to edit and show). I will also talk about the stands we made at different locations and what the landscape and environment told us where to setup at these locations.

But first, I thought I'd jump right into a nice Pic of one I dumped at approx. 100 yards with a IR Defense MKII atop a .243. These guys made it way too easy for me to dump this one just behind the ear. I made this shot atop Tom's new Predator StrikeForce truck I will go into much detail as well in this thread. Tom has done some pretty impressive work to this truck that even allowed us to drive in PITCH BLACK conditions at 53MPH with his new IR light bars while all of us were wearing NVD's. My kind of driving!

Anyways, more to come. Enjoy the pics!

Vic

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Here is Tom's new truck I was sitting on top of when I took down that Yote. This pic did not have the seats up as yet. Amazing machine to say the least.
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Thought I would talk about these truly 200 yard effective range Rigid Industries IR lighting bars. Can't say enough how good these IR lights were with Gen 3 devices. They're designed in the 940nm freq. of light so completely invisible to naked eye signature.

I was VERY surprised these 940 units had the range they did but when I looked at the specs, the main rectangle IR light bar puts out a raw LED Output of 19,800MW! Not only did Tom have a single rectangle bar but also placed 2 box light IR units on each side putting out 7,920MW each. These two flanked the main IR light bar and were pointed out at around 45 deg each direction of the truck picking up lighting were the spread of the main bar stopped. This allowed for approx. 120+ deg of total lighting spill out in front with the main frontal light bar reaching a true 200 yards effective range!. The drivers situational awareness was exponentially greater than any visible lighting system I've encountered as there were NO shadowing effects. It was simple exercise driving 50mph+ but MUCH more speed could have been negotiated if the need exists due to the range and side spill of the lighting. Tom was also using a standard single PVS-14 while driving and I was wearing an ANVIS.

Ya know, I've looked at a lot of IR lighting over the years, and these REALLY impressed me. I cannot say enough about this system and they are also built like a tank and will stand up to the harshest conditions. I was also surprised at the price. $600 for the main bar and $350 for the side lighting is not high priced at considering the performance and makeup of this equipment. I HIGHLY recommend them!

Here is an up close pic of the lighting
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YouTube Vid NOT ours showing another customer of ours using his Rigid IR lighting. He did not have the side lighting on his rig, but it's always funny to hear the excitement in folks voices when driving in pitch dark for the first time. We will also get some vids together with our GoPro adapter and other vids showing the side spill of the IR lighting that was achieved.


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Here is a Vid from Rigid showing a demo of their lighting. This vid. does not due these lights justice as it was VERY bright out there to begin with as you can tell by the skyline and other factors.

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I will post more pics and specifics on the truck coming up. The whole rig was optimized for day AND night hunting. I cannot say enough how much attention to detail was paid to this setup.

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Originally Posted By: Mr. Poppadopalis3 days of hunting with world champions and you shot 1 coyote?

Are you holding out on us????????????

LOL...VERY good observation. They actually called 2 others in during the last day and guess who couldn't get the gun on them fast enough?
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BUT, put a NVD in my hands and it's a new and deadly world out there!

I am sorry, I cannot get this day shooting stuff down with shooting sticks, chairs and all that! Get me down prone or even off-hand and I'm good to go! In fact I told both gents, I had not shot a Yote or even hunted a Yote during the day in over 6 years. Everything has been done at night all this time and it showed! LOL
 
Hey 1 dog is still better than a ZERO in my book!

March is probably the worst time of the year to call in Coyotes, they have heard it all and seen it all!


Looked like a great hunt with friends and the memories will last forever:)
 
Originally Posted By: crittr gittrHey Victor were you guys here in Utah hunting? Some of them pics look familiar. lmao..I was thinking the same thing....we are truly sick, sick, sick
 
Originally Posted By: crittr gittrHey Victor were you guys here in Utah hunting? Some of them pics look familiar.

NW Utah first 2 days.

As Tom mentioned, last day in southern Idaho where we called in the last 3 Yotes.
 
The calling was tough, no doubt. We experienced rain, snow and high winds every day we hunted. We hunted hard in Utah and goose-egged. The three coyotes we did manage to call up, were all in Idaho actually. We rang out our equipment, shot some beautiful footage and made priceless friendships. That's what it's all about...
 
Originally Posted By: Predator StrikeforceThe calling was tough, no doubt. We experienced rain, snow and high winds every day we hunted. We hunted hard in Utah and goose-egged. The three coyotes we did manage to call up, were all in Idaho actually. We rang out our equipment, shot some beautiful footage and made priceless friendships. That's what it's all about...

Indeed Tom, I look forward to showing all our footage. It was some of the best hunting I've done even with the conditions of shivering my butt off with 3-4 layers of clothing at night!
 
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