Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

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Swedishbowhunter
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby Swedishbowhunter » Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:09 am

MOtgrinMI wrote:HuntStand #1 - used them all!


How does Huntstands satellite imagery compare to the others? I have ONX and like it, I tried to use Basemap but it was very complicated to use compared to onx. Was thinking of trying Hunstand Pro.


MOtgrinMI
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby MOtgrinMI » Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:21 pm

Significantly better satellite imagery IMO. Most of onX’s pics seem to be leaf on in the middle of summer and pretty low res while HuntStand gives you several different satellite imagery options and you can find leaf off imagery way more often. Their main imagery is significantly more high res than onX currently.

I will say I am surprised some mapping app hasn’t thrown money at Birdseye imagery to get super high res/detail fall aerials. I remember when bing maps used Birdseye for a while and it was the cats meow as far as map scouting and aerial imagery goes!
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CattailCommander
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby CattailCommander » Sat Feb 20, 2021 3:46 am

OnX, County GIS maps (usually the best satellite views and 2 ft topo lines)
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Tim H
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby Tim H » Sat Feb 20, 2021 3:49 am

I use a combination of these depending on the terrain and what I'm trying to accomplish.

Huntstand
OnX
Hillmap.com
Bingmaps
Google Earth

I also will use certain state apps for additional information.
KLEMZ
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby KLEMZ » Sat Feb 20, 2021 11:30 am

For desk top scouting I prefer Google Earth Pro as my main viewer. My favorite feature is the ability to overlay any map, from any source, onto the GE maps. This unique feature allows me to compare information between ANY two maps on the internet by sliding the translucency slider back and forth, often revealing things you would not have noticed otherwise. Some of my most useful overlays for scouting are....

-Caltopo... "scanned topo" base layer with "shaded relief".."normal"...stacked on, set at 50% transparency. This gives a nice 3D effect. Then save that map in GE and you will be able to see the 3D topo over any aerial you have.

-Lidar DEM hill shade view, overlaid over any aerial you have in GE. This shows subtle points, humps, secondary logging roads, man made alterations to the land, in extreme detail (topo's don't do this), again...layered over any other map you want. This layer is eye opening!

-GIS county aerial taken in late October in my north woods hunting area (clearly showing oaks holding leaves vs all other hardwood trees being bare). I layered this into GE, drew a white line around all oak clumps of 1 acre to 6-7 acres in size. Now I can see where isolated oaks are located in relation to typical bedding terrain. It feels like cheating!

GE Pro also allows me to save hi resolution aerials as KMZ files. What that means is I can make custom aerials and put them on my GPS. What I do is layer things like property borders, isolated oaks, access paths, stand site locations all onto one aerial, and use that as my in field navigation map while hunting/scouting. Works great, but is a bit of home work to accomplish. But Beasts aren't afraid of work!
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live2hunt
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby live2hunt » Sat Feb 20, 2021 11:38 am

onX, google maps, usgs, and some states DNR websites also have maps with great information.
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby BCD » Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:22 am

MOtgrinMI wrote:HuntStand #1 - used them all!



What do you like better about Huntstand compared to OnX?

Thank You!
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby MOtgrinMI » Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:08 pm

Higher res imagery - lots more of it leaf-off - more layers available - better sharing capabilities - different maps for different pieces of information and ability to layer them all together (for example you can have a trail camera map, a stand map, a deer sign map, a map for different years). Basically you can build custom maps and look at how deer sign, stand strategy, trail cam placement changed year over year which can become important to pick out patterns on a cycle like crop rotation, etc. OnX you basically have one map where you can filter points out but not many different maps of the same parcel which is really limiting IMO. If you hunt any shared properties it has great collaboration tools that allow you to "reserve" stand locations or track where you sat on a particular hunt as well as have a sightings and harvest log. You can also share location with the other guys out there while hunting which is a cool feature! Basically there is a lot more you can do with HuntStand than you can with OnX right now and you get all states for $70 cheaper yearly than OnX's comparable elite package which includes all states.Check it out. They offer a trial version for you to mess around with it!

Don't get me wrong, OnX is ok but it seems they kind of rested on their laurels a bit with development of new and useful features.
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CattailCommander
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby CattailCommander » Sat Mar 06, 2021 12:50 am

https://www.fws.gov/wetlands/data/mapper.html
Just found this map, really puts all the transitions/edges into picture which might help some people! Saves me time from mapping out all the transitions in the areas I hunt.

Here's one for MN hunters from the DNR site, basically the same thing but a little different. There's a few good maps on the MNDNR website if anybody hasn't looked into all of them yet.
https://arcgis.dnr.state.mn.us/ewr/wetlandfinder/
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Re: Favorite E Scouting App/Site?

Unread postby KLEMZ » Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:23 pm

bcarey2 wrote:https://www.fws.gov/wetlands/data/mapper.html
Just found this map, really puts all the transitions/edges into picture which might help some people! Saves me time from mapping out all the transitions in the areas I hunt.


Great information! Thanks for sharing that!


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