Asking for suggestions

[Mobuck]

Since several members have been extremely generous with their contributions to my tool dilemma, in return I'm considering the offer of a deer hunt for a blind hunter this year or maybe next. I'm tossing this out as sort of a group effort for both support and suggestions of possible participants. Some of the challenges include suitable overnight accommodations, transportation, licenses, and whether the hunter can be somewhat self-sufficient during non-hunting/overnight periods. I can provide a suitable rifle, game care, and on-site transportation. The catch is: I have no capability to manage a wheelchair bound person.
Everything is open to suggestions.

 

[el caminero]

After idly considering how to get a wheelchair up into a blind i realised i hadent read it right at first.
I understand that guns can be " rigidly" mounted and targeted, and went off down the rabbithole of video relayed from the optics so an observer, adjusting the rifle (another rabbithole of tri-axial ack-ack mountings) could alert the shooter of Just When to ease the ol'trigger, but i grew up reading scifi and robots.
Its not a line of thought foreign to me, since i arrived at the same conclusion years ago when some ninnynet goofball reported trail cams being used to shoot deer from miles away, and my thinking at the time was based on the remote gun-targeting via video telemetry some of our bombers have tried.

 

[Mobuck]

Not to brag but I'm very confident in my home designed equipment and it's capabilities.

 

[Mobuck]

I guess I could expand this by offering to travel to another location to provide equipment and assistance if the hunter wasn't able to travel.
One stipulation: I don't fly so within a reasonable driving distance.

 

[el caminero]

Not to brag but I'm very confident in my home designed equipment and it's capabilities.

Excellent base to start from. Good luck to you, of course.

 

[Delbert]

You got me intrigued there Mobuck.

Is the rifle equipped with a wired/electrical trigger system that the blind person will operate while someone with good eyes does the aiming?

I'm not seeing (no pun intended) how a blind person, or optical hindered person can do both aiming and seeing where the quarry is located to be able to place a good shot. Of course, there's those who have good eyes that can't hit the broad side of a barn.

I don't know of any scopes/open sights that beep quicker when getting closer to target and solid beep when bullseye. Maybe, that could be the future of optical sights. I do know of scopes that do 1-shot adjustment to get on target.

Could you please elaborate further of how this kind of hunt would go and would a special hunting permit for the actual gun handler be needed and special permit for the trigger puller. This is something not listed in any conservation manual of hunting I've seen here in Missouri. Except those under I think 15, that requires a guardian to be with them, but the hunter still needs to have a permit.

This would be a great blessing to a veteran to be able to do. I wish you so much luck to make your plan to come true.

 

[Mobuck]

Ok, it seems some forum members haven't heard about my blind Son and the gadgetry I assembled to allow him to hunt.
My younger Son lost his sight at age 12. In order to rebuild his confidence and interest in life, I designed an 'assisted sighting device' using an offset dot optic which allows a sighted assistant to aim while the blind shooter holds and fires the gun. By the time my Son graduated high school, he'd tagged dozens of deer, a bull elk, and a Corsican ram, and been on TV a couple times. I even set up a shotgun allowing him to shoot clay birds and he knocked down a couple pheasants, too. Needless to say, we became very proficient with this sort of shooting. During that time, we also organized and provided the rifle for another blind youth's elk hunt and donated a rifle with a similar device to a group that conducted handicapped youth hunts. In 2019, I offered a hunt for a blind hunter on this forum and was honored to assist a Marine Gunnery Sgt who lost his sight as a result of a roadside bomb in Iraq. He had a slightly different device that displayed the sight picture on a cell phone screen but functioned the same as my device.
As for permits and legalities, the blind person is the actual hunter and would follow whatever regulations are in place. We've never been challenged by bunny cops in any of the states we hunted.
I conduct hunts on my property from hardside blinds overlooking harvested grain fields in most cases. Distances are kept conservative. Another scenario would be a game farm that would offer a free hunt or outfitter/landowner with depredation or herd reduction opportunities.

 

[el caminero]

Gotta love a country that allows...encourages! Such delightful ingenuity. I had briefly considered suggesting a pellicle mirror, off a camera, but thats a 90° offset, and reversed, or rather close if inline, and while a periscope could be rigged with greater offset, the recoil could mess with its alignment, is why i suggested some sort of video optics.
Link a gopro type, thru the optics, to a remote screen, and have a downloadable video record of the event?

 

[Joey]

Ok, it seems some forum members haven't heard about my blind Son and the gadgetry I assembled to allow him to hunt.
My younger Son lost his sight at age 12. In order to rebuild his confidence and interest in life, I designed an 'assisted sighting device' using an offset dot optic which allows a sighted assistant to aim while the blind shooter holds and fires the gun. By the time my Son graduated high school, he'd tagged dozens of deer, a bull elk, and a Corsican ram, and been on TV a couple times. I even set up a shotgun allowing him to shoot clay birds and he knocked down a couple pheasants, too. Needless to say, we became very proficient with this sort of shooting. During that time, we also organized and provided the rifle for another blind youth's elk hunt and donated a rifle with a similar device to a group that conducted handicapped youth hunts. In 2019, I offered a hunt for a blind hunter on this forum and was honored to assist a Marine Gunnery Sgt who lost his sight as a result of a roadside bomb in Iraq. He had a slightly different device that displayed the sight picture on a cell phone screen but functioned the same as my device.
As for permits and legalities, the blind person is the actual hunter and would follow whatever regulations are in place. We've never been challenged by bunny cops in any of the states we hunted.
I conduct hunts on my property from hardside blinds overlooking harvested grain fields in most cases. Distances are kept conservative. Another scenario would be a game farm that would offer a free hunt or outfitter/landowner with depredation or herd reduction opportunities.

I admire your dedication and selflessness. There are several game farms in Georgia, Texas and surrounding states. Seems flatland hunting would be the most practical. I would do a search of these and contact them. There are also many guide services in western US, that offers more stringent hunts. Surely one would be willing to help such a cause.

 

[Delbert]

We need more like you Mobuck. I've seen a couple hunt shows on tv that have special hunts for handicapped people and have admiration for all of them who give pleasure to those that can't do what able bodied hunter's can, but with help are now able to accomplish what a few years ago couldn't.

 

[Mobuck]

It still brings tears to my eyes when I think back to the day I sat beside a boy (not my Son) who'd lost his sight to a turkey hunting accident as the clank of a solid hit on a 100 yard gong followed his shot. When we sat down, he had zero confidence and a very low outlook on his future. It took a lot of talking to get him prepped to 'do his part' but after 5 consecutive hits, he was a totally different person. The next morning he killed a nice 5x5 elk and was bubbling with a renewed outlook.

 

[Joey]

That is so cool. Keep up the good work, man. People like you are rare.

 

[Mobuck]

I claim no special skills. I've been fairly successful at giving others an opportunity to use the skills/abilities they have (or have left).