GPS has made my hunting great!

[Mossy Bloke]

I've been doing all my hunting in some deep swamps recently away from the city. My problem is that I can't get very far from my truck for fear of having a hard time finding my way back. The area I'm hunting has thousands of acres of swamp land with small creeks, islands, mud bogs, etc with heavy tree cover. Basically, after 40 yards or so, my truck is completely out of sight and everything looks the same. So I was stuck with putting up orange markers every 20 or 30 yards to find my way back which turned out to be a real pain since I'm stalking.

So I finally broke down, went to Bass Pro, and bought a GPS. I've toyed with the idea for a couple of years now, but haven't really been able to justify spending that kind of money for something that I thought would turn out to be just an expensive electronic bragging piece. Boy was I wrong.

Bought a Garmin Etrex Vista, sat down with it for a while that night and figured out the basics.

I've been using it a little more each day as I got comfortable with it and trusting it more and more.

I love this thing. I get out of my truck and mark where it is. Then I walk anywhere I want to. I don't have to worry about mentally "marking" identifiable features any more. I'm able to walk over to that next bog now without having to backtrack to my original path, I just walk over there and then, if I see something else that looks good, I walk there too.

When I've gone as far as I want to, I can either follow my steps backwards to my truck (as I've always done in the past) which basically ensures that I'm not going to see anything since I just walked there...OR I can walk in a straight line back to my truck with the GPS telling me the exact direction I need to be facing to head back and the exact distance til I get there. So, if I've walked in a big semi circle, I can shoot a straight line to my exit point and hunt the whole way out. It's great!

I'm certainly not going to stake my life on this thing, but for hunting in some thick woods, it's the best purchase I've made yet.

Anyone else have some positive experiences with a GPS? Do you use it regularly? I can't see ever leaving the house without again right now.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

I shot a real nice 3 point Muley this year and I could not have gotten him without my GPS. In this case, my experience is completely opposite of yours. Where I was hunting, you can leave your truck and see it from 10 miles away. However, I was hunting very close to the state border and there are no markers defining the line there. A few days earlier I had mapped the border with my GPS and knew exactly where it was. The deer I killed was only about 200 yards from the border.

 

[Art Eatman]

I've hunted some on a 4,000-acre patch of swamplands on the Appaplachicola River in NW Flroida. I've mostly just gone by compass directions. I'd park the truck and then head out on some sort of large circle. If I got a bit puzzled, I'd just check for a compass direction to head back to the road. Sooner or later I'd cut the road. If no tire tracks, turn one way; if tire tracks, go the other.

A lot of it for me, though, is that I started wandering through brushlands and forests when I was a pretty young kid. I've spent more time "just wandering in the brush" than most folks have in walking upright. Most folks, as adults, have to learn the sort of woodcraft orientations that I grew up with and have always taken for granted.

I'd darned sure rather somebody had a GPS along with their topo sheet and compass than for them to try and play Mr. Macho, the wilderness expert...

, Art

 

[Moon]

I hunt in the same swamp conditions you are describing and have used an E-trex for about 3 years. I often travel up to a mile from my starting point anymore, which is WAY FARTHER than I would feel comfortable going without a GPS. The unit is not a cure all, and I always have a compass to back me up, but knock on wood the thing has brought me back every time. They are especially useful if you naturally have a poor sense of direction (like me).

 

[jimbo]

Good for you.

CARRY SPARE BATTERIES.

 

[stevelyn]

Cool. You should consider taking an orienteering or land nav course to learn the "primitive" method in case your batteries fail, you drop the GPS unit in the water and to check your compass heading w/ the GPS. Being able to do both will give you the confidence to go well off the beaten path and perhaps blaze new trails.

 

[Art Eatman]

I've always been amused by the way folks will go into new and unknown country and never stop and give some thought to the country behind them. After all, what's in back is the way home, right?

Or they'll head from camp toward some mountain, and later on not have it occur to them that having that same mountain to their right or left just really isn't they way back to camp. They're 90 degrees off, which makes for a lot of wasted time for the Search&Rescue folks.

GPS is a Good Thing for many...

Art

 

[Carlos Cabeza]

Got lost good once in SE. Oklahoma mtns. The sun went down REALLY FAST and I simply could not find the path that I followed to go into the brush. A new moon and no flashlight were the curses that got me there. I finally wandered out to a logging road (about 3 hr. later) and amazingly went the right direction to the truck. when I got home and explained why I was AWOL, It was suggested that I get one 'o them new fangled sattelite triangulation thangs.(GPS). I now use one year round for scouting as well as hunting, I can go right back to the exact spot regardless of the season.
Got myself a good flashlight too !

 

[Bravo11]

I have a Magellan Map 330 and I use it all the time hunting. In addition to marking your starting point you can map out possible locations on a map and walk right to them or find a good spot in the woods and mark it.
During the off season me and the clan "Geocache". It's basically hunting for hidden boxes stashed in the woods(or wherever) given a set of coords.
Take a look at www.geocaching.com

 

[mete]

A back up compass and study of a topographical map is a good idea along with extra batteries. Honda now has an ATV with a built in GPS system !

 

[natedog]

GPS is cool, and can make hunting/hiking more enjoyable, but I wouldn't rely on it entirely. It never hurts to know at least basic orienteering with a compass.

 

[jamz]

Your GPS is a great tool, but you have to keep in mind that it WILL fail you, at the worst possible time. Plan accordingly for it to just go blank.

-James

 

[jdege]

I seem to remember somone ask Dan'l Boone if he'd ever been lost. "Nope," he said. "But I was once a might bewildered for three days."

 

[Art Eatman]

jdege, my variant on that theme is, "How can you be lost, if you don't care where you are?"

, Art

 

[kentucky bucky]

They used to make these things called a compass or kummpuss or something like that and they didn't even need batteries.

 

[pinblaster]

I agree with jamz. Murphy's law will get you every time. Get a good orienteering compass and read a book on how to properly use it, that way if your gps stops working you won't find yourself up the creek without a paddle. I was one of those guy's who never got lost, until the one time I was out hunting and was walking back to my truck or I should say, thought I was walking back to my truck. I had walked far enougfh that I should have come to the road, but the road was nowhere in sight. It was a cloudy day so I didn't have the Sun to go by, this is when the panic set in. I kept walking in the same direction and a short time later came to the road (pure luck) and took an educated guess as to which way I had to go to get to my truck (got lucky again). That incident was enougfh to convince me to get a compass and learn how to use it, I also carry a backup compass in case something might happen to the one I'm using.

 

[Dr.Rob]

GPS is a good back up to a Silva Compass and a topo map.

Now if you were never a Boyscout... I'm not sure where you'd go to learn HOW to use them. Outward bound?

I noticed when my hunting buddies started getting GPS.. that we'd have to sit an extra 5-10 minutes at every lanmark to "get a reading" or "set a point" or whatever.

Funny thing is you need THREE satellites to get GPS... there are places in Colorado and Wyomnig where you can't GET three reliably... one place near Laramie couldn't get a signal at all.


GPS is a useful tool, if you use it right.

 

[pinblaster]

My first compass was a Silva Huntsman and it came with basic instructions on using it. I also got books from the library on navigating with a compass. My second compass (my primary compass) is a Silva orienteering compass with the map scales, ruler, and magnifining glass. It is about 2" by 4" in size and I'm pretty sure I paid less than $20.00 for it.

 

[jdege]

In most terrains, your primary land-nav tool is the ground.

I'm always amazed at people who go walking through the woods and don't pay any attention to the ground.

 

[Moon]

I can appreciate the comments on the need to also carry a compass (I carry two – a good orienteering compass and a cheap pin on ball – in addition to my GPS). But having used a compass all of my life, I can tell you that a GPS can do things that simply cannot be duplicated nearly as well with a compass. My opinion is most certainly based on the terrain I hunt in – dense, utterly featureless swamp, with poor visibility in many parts (anywhere from as little as 10 yards to up to 200 yards depending on the cover). You can get lost in the first 300 yards in this sort of terrain, and NORTH-EAST-SOUTH-WEST often doesn’t help getting you back to exactly where you need to be. My GPS is my primary means of navigation, and has worked better than a compass ever served me, even with its inherit faults.