GPS Software for Scouting

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SmallJawNH
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GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby SmallJawNH » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:14 am

I know bowhunter15 had a couple videos showing how to use a GPS for Scouting. Does anyone else have tutorials they've found helpful to manipulate the data in thier GPS to optimize scouting?

I have a Garmin 62s and I bought the 100k topo software but it lacks detail and aerial images I need to properly scout. This area has zero cell reception so I'm dependent on what I make available offline.

If anyone uses OnX or another chip I'd be interested to hear how it helps in scouting and hunting.


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ghoasthunter
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby ghoasthunter » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:40 am

I would too my garmen e trex is 18 years old and sucks
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Tater
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Tater » Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:14 pm

I have been having pretty good luck using Back Country Navigator for Android OS in conjunction with Google Earth.

I can use GE to cyber scout and place waypoints or create tracks and then export them to bcnav. Or i can go scout and record my track and mark beds/trees with bcnav in the field and then import them into GE.

I have just recently started ising caltopo.com as well and have been creating custom layers to use in GE to help better find points of interest and then export the points to bcnav and go to the woods to scout.
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby bwwma » Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:52 pm

Can you export/ import to caltopo from back country navigator?
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby SmallJawNH » Wed Jan 17, 2018 4:16 pm

I'm trying to avoid using my phone if I can to save battery life but I know it works for some. Tomorrow night when I get home I'm going to give gpsfiledepot.com a try. Hopefully I don't screw anything up.

I've been using Google Earth and caltopo and they work great. When I get out there though I feel like my plan gets corrupted without giving myself a strict track to follow.
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Tater
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Tater » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:03 pm

bwwma wrote:Can you export/ import to caltopo from back country navigator?


I have not done bcnav>caltopo yet, but you can definitely do bcnav>GE>caltopo.
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Tater
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Tater » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:08 pm

SmallJawNH wrote:I'm trying to avoid using my phone if I can to save battery life but I know it works for some. Tomorrow night when I get home I'm going to give gpsfiledepot.com a try. Hopefully I don't screw anything up.

I've been using Google Earth and caltopo and they work great. When I get out there though I feel like my plan gets corrupted without giving myself a strict track to follow.


I cant speak for everyone, but i have had decent battery life using phone in airplane mode to where it is basically only using gps, no data. Aside from that i plan to take a 4400 mAh external battery with me on my scouting trip to hill country im planning. This will give me 2 more charges i believe. If i drain my phone 3 times during daylight i better be wore out lol.
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Wetfoot
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Wetfoot » Thu Jan 18, 2018 12:04 am

I ended up buying OnX maps this year to keep me on public in areas where I knew I'd be close to private. Was very happy with the way it worked. Only disappointment was the area I do most of my hunting has no digital county ownership records. That meant only private/ public boundary with no ownership records. Most of the upper peninsula was full information. Was able to easily use the chip on my etrex 20 and the online data on my cell/laptop. Google Earth and call topo are still my primary at home scouting tools.
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Jonny » Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:03 am

Tater wrote:
SmallJawNH wrote:I'm trying to avoid using my phone if I can to save battery life but I know it works for some. Tomorrow night when I get home I'm going to give gpsfiledepot.com a try. Hopefully I don't screw anything up.

I've been using Google Earth and caltopo and they work great. When I get out there though I feel like my plan gets corrupted without giving myself a strict track to follow.


I cant speak for everyone, but i have had decent battery life using phone in airplane mode to where it is basically only using gps, no data. Aside from that i plan to take a 4400 mAh external battery with me on my scouting trip to hill country im planning. This will give me 2 more charges i believe. If i drain my phone 3 times during daylight i better be wore out lol.


If you don't already have the battery, I would suggest getting something bigger. Mine can charge my phone 6 times I believe. Takes a lot of pressure off remembering to charge it after each hunt, and on extremely cold days, my phone will die at 40-50% battery life. Heck even when I icefish, I put the charger and phone into a bigger pocket within my jacket, and run the charger all day.

I got mine on amazon for $25, give or take. One of the best things I ever bought. Even use it on weekends camping
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Tater
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Tater » Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:08 am

Jonny wrote:
Tater wrote:
SmallJawNH wrote:I'm trying to avoid using my phone if I can to save battery life but I know it works for some. Tomorrow night when I get home I'm going to give gpsfiledepot.com a try. Hopefully I don't screw anything up.

I've been using Google Earth and caltopo and they work great. When I get out there though I feel like my plan gets corrupted without giving myself a strict track to follow.


I cant speak for everyone, but i have had decent battery life using phone in airplane mode to where it is basically only using gps, no data. Aside from that i plan to take a 4400 mAh external battery with me on my scouting trip to hill country im planning. This will give me 2 more charges i believe. If i drain my phone 3 times during daylight i better be wore out lol.


If you don't already have the battery, I would suggest getting something bigger. Mine can charge my phone 6 times I believe. Takes a lot of pressure off remembering to charge it after each hunt, and on extremely cold days, my phone will die at 40-50% battery life. Heck even when I icefish, I put the charger and phone into a bigger pocket within my jacket, and run the charger all day.

I got mine on amazon for $25, give or take. One of the best things I ever bought. Even use it on weekends camping


Yeah, i mispoke. Mine is actually a 7800mAH. I bought it a couple yrs ago. I think i paid 30-40 bucks for it. Like all other technology prices have dropped. You can probably buy one with 2x the capacity for less than half the price lol.
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby bwwma » Thu Jan 18, 2018 4:55 am

Caltopo is an awesome tool for hill country especially with the shading. I use my phone in the woods I've been looking for a faster way to transfer data to caltopo rather than manually creating pins from phone to caltopo.
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby SmallJawNH » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:07 pm

Wetfoot wrote:I ended up buying OnX maps this year to keep me on public in areas where I knew I'd be close to private. Was very happy with the way it worked. Only disappointment was the area I do most of my hunting has no digital county ownership records. That meant only private/ public boundary with no ownership records. Most of the upper peninsula was full information. Was able to easily use the chip on my etrex 20 and the online data on my cell/laptop. Google Earth and call topo are still my primary at home scouting tools.


I was looking at it and some say the OnX membership is better than the chip. Something about not getting aerials on the chip but they got good aerials with the ap membership. Did you have that experience? Did the chip come with the membership?
SmallJawNH
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby SmallJawNH » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:08 pm

Tater wrote:
Jonny wrote:
Tater wrote:
SmallJawNH wrote:I'm trying to avoid using my phone if I can to save battery life but I know it works for some. Tomorrow night when I get home I'm going to give gpsfiledepot.com a try. Hopefully I don't screw anything up.

I've been using Google Earth and caltopo and they work great. When I get out there though I feel like my plan gets corrupted without giving myself a strict track to follow.


I cant speak for everyone, but i have had decent battery life using phone in airplane mode to where it is basically only using gps, no data. Aside from that i plan to take a 4400 mAh external battery with me on my scouting trip to hill country im planning. This will give me 2 more charges i believe. If i drain my phone 3 times during daylight i better be wore out lol.


If you don't already have the battery, I would suggest getting something bigger. Mine can charge my phone 6 times I believe. Takes a lot of pressure off remembering to charge it after each hunt, and on extremely cold days, my phone will die at 40-50% battery life. Heck even when I icefish, I put the charger and phone into a bigger pocket within my jacket, and run the charger all day.

I got mine on amazon for $25, give or take. One of the best things I ever bought. Even use it on weekends camping


Yeah, i mispoke. Mine is actually a 7800mAH. I bought it a couple yrs ago. I think i paid 30-40 bucks for it. Like all other technology prices have dropped. You can probably buy one with 2x the capacity for less than half the price lol.


I bought some Burton ones but they aren't that effective. I should get one of these regardless whether I use my GPS instead of my phone or not.
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Wetfoot
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Wetfoot » Fri Jan 19, 2018 12:02 am

SmallJawNH wrote:
Wetfoot wrote:I ended up buying OnX maps this year to keep me on public in areas where I knew I'd be close to private. Was very happy with the way it worked. Only disappointment was the area I do most of my hunting has no digital county ownership records. That meant only private/ public boundary with no ownership records. Most of the upper peninsula was full information. Was able to easily use the chip on my etrex 20 and the online data on my cell/laptop. Google Earth and call topo are still my primary at home scouting tools.


I was looking at it and some say the OnX membership is better than the chip. Something about not getting aerials on the chip but they got good aerials with the ap membership. Did you have that experience? Did the chip come with the membership?

I bought the premium membership. It came with the support for my laptop and phone. I was primarily after land ownership details and boundaries. As I said, my county isn't digitized so that function did not work. I was able however, to use the laptop to lay boundaries down on private pieces around me by using the tools in the program. This was important to me as there are a lot of hunting properties around here and I don't have permission from all of them ( yet!). To answer your question, the resolution on the chip was good. Not as good as Google maps. I don't know that the online stuff was appreciably better. I prefer Caltopo and Google maps for my online scouting and use the OnX maps to keep me out of trouble. Note, after adding private land boundaries on my laptop, I was able to have access to those on my phone. I haven't as yet, been able to get those boundaries on to my GPS. Still working on that. I'm sure there is a backdoor way to do this. :think:
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Rob loper
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Re: GPS Software for Scouting

Unread postby Rob loper » Fri Jan 19, 2018 1:11 am

I think im gonna break down and just get onx for the phone its 30$ a year. But i wanna get a gps too for back up but 64 st is i think 300$ so im hoping i can save up
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