Podcast: This Thermal Drone Project Is Revealing Surprising Mature Buck Behavior

Earlier this year the YouTube channel Whitetail Research posted a video titled “What 1 YEAR of Thermal Whitetail Research Taught Me.” The video was created by Derrick Dixon and featured some phenomenal drone footage of mature bucks interacting with other deer and moving through the landscape. 

Dixon grew up hunting deer on his family property in Missouri and had always been fascinated by animal behavior. He also became fascinated with thermal drones. Last year he lost his job in the tech industry, so he decided to spend nine straight months, including his entire fall, observing mature bucks on a handful of private properties with his drone. 

The result is some incredible deer footage and surprising details about how and when mature bucks move across the landscape. He spent a total of 2,120 hours flying his drone and including a total of 232 hours following one mature buck he nicknamed Winter. 

In the most recent episode of the Outdoor Life Podcast, I got to sit down with Dixon and hear about some of the details that emerged from his drone project, and how hunters can capitalize it. Here’s a quick example: 

“Bucks like to travel with thermals to their favor, not wind,” Dixon says. “Yeah, wind does not play near as much of a role. I mean, it can if it overpowers thermals … if wind is 10, 15-plus miles per hour and it’s really disrupting thermals and making things volatile, then wind can have a massive role. But if things are kind of suboptimal and you’re getting 3 to 7 mph, then thermals are going to be their game that they’re playing. And the idea that [mature bucks are always] moving with the wind in their face, or they’re moving through crosswind …. Whenever they’re crossing saddles, I’ve struggled to find [that] correlation.”

You can listen to the full interview with Dixon on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.