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

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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Wow. Is that the same vehicle he had at the convention last month? If it is the changes he made are crazy. It was nice looking before but now. Crazy. Tom is a very nice guy, I'm glad you had nice time!
 
Originally Posted By: 6mm06
Great stuff. Anxious to hear more.



You bet and thank you. These guys got this stuff down to a science. I mean I've killed my share of Yotes, but these guys are at the next level I doubt I'll ever get to.

Good looking dogs compared to where I hunt in Southern Kalifornia where they're mangy and ugly.

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Originally Posted By: WhoCaresWow. Is that the same vehicle he had at the convention last month? If it is the changes he made are crazy. It was nice looking before but now. Crazy. Tom is a very nice guy, I'm glad you had nice time!

I think so. Unfortunately I was not able to attnd this years event.
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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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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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Pick of the back end of the truck and the gear drawer pullouts. These drawers were virtually silent which was great each time we hoped out of the truck to establish a stand for Yotes. We moved around a lot, nor more than a half hour on each stand we established. We would go a mile, setup a stand, pack up and go another few miles. We covered a lot of miles and land each day and night.

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What a fun hunt with Vic. The equipment that TNVC offers almost makes night hunting unfair. ALMOST! LOL! Talk about a game changer. Plan to see much, much more night hunting form Predator Strikeforce in the future. I'm hooked and now that I have the proper equipment, these coyotes don't stand a chance.
 
Originally Posted By: WhoCaresWow. Is that the same vehicle he had at the convention last month? If it is the changes he made are crazy. It was nice looking before but now. Crazy. Tom is a very nice guy, I'm glad you had nice time!

Yep, same vehicle. I've been working day and night on it...
 
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