onX HUNT mapping for both the Garmin GPS (colored – microchip capable) and mobile device, such as the smart phones which 90% of hunters and outdoor enthusiasts carry with them 24/7.
Emergency Beacon Needs to be registered.
The Garmin GPS, at least in the 21st should have WAAS (Wide Area Augmentable System) Note: Global Positioning System GPS is made up of at least 24 satellites, working in all conditions 24 hours a day and is FREE.
Garmin Rino 755 has two way and your location is available to another user. This is one that I highly recommend.
I would say at least 40% tell me they are “Old School” and use paper maps and a compass (that is maybe on the compass).
Just one little note with onX HUNT on the mobile side there is a trail layer that features trails old and new (CONUS). Another tool that can help in many hunting areas.
Let’s get real about paper maps, most are outdated, and boundaries change all the time. I threw out all my paper maps, that I have had for more than 30 years with all the X’s on them, moving the X’s to my GPS. Paper maps are outdate in field use and lacking the ability to Zoom in. Even if you mark your map with routes, it surely isn’t going let you do an active route back to camp or truck as a GPS would do. As for the compass, it’s Okay, if your batteries go dead or enemy decides to use an electromagnetic pulse or EMP while you’re in the back country.
These can reach out many miles and reasonable in price in the pairs.
Beside the Garmin GPS, Mobile Phone with the onX HUNT APP and chip, there is the 2 Ways such as Motorola handheld communicators, and last but not lease is an Emergency Locator Beacon, just in case you’re in real trouble and are immobile…
We must remember to have them in our backpack or ditty bag (U.S. NAVY), along with the other tools used in the field. Frank Biggs
To Trespass Knowingly or Not To Trespass with Technology!
Without getting carried away with the past, I will say that in the day, in Oregon when the Bhagwan & his Cult ruled some 60,000 acres outside of Antelope, Oregon, that also had some 60,000 acres of B.L.M. within the boundary, with a vast majority of it being landlocked, I ran the line to hunt for the big Mule Deer and Rocky Mtn. Elk that roamed the land. Later it was taken over by the Washington Family, who donated the land to Young Life. The Bhagwan was pretty easy if you stayed on the B.L.M. via a public road access. Young Life in the first year allowed access via Current Creek on the Big Muddy Rd. That did not last long when the Management of the Young Life on the Big Muddy found there was real money with the hunting of big game.
In 2002 I was stopped on B.L.M. on the Northeast Sector of the Grizzly Elk Hunt Unit in Oregon by Young Life Patrollers. They demanded our Licenses, which in Oregon if on private you’re going to have to give it to them. I told them we were on B.L.M. and I wasn’t going to give them anything. They were packing handguns and demanded the licenses of all three of us. I said are you going to shoot us if we don’t and they said” are you going to shoot us”, I said funny our rifles are on the Quads some 100 yards down the B.L.M. Road. Standstill for a while and the other hunter (Young Life Donor & Doctor) who was with us gave up this license first, then without any more battle of words we all gave the Olsen Brothers our licenses. Their words when they finally got their old technology GPS’s (old technology GPS didn’t work well in pockets) out of their front pockets and found a signal said the following “we are on B.L.M.” “Ah! We still know you were TRESPASSING!” Let it be known that they had to cross B.L.M. to get to one small parcel in the middle of B.L.M.
When we go out of the B.L.M. via the same trail we took in via B.L.M., an O.S.P. Game Officer was waiting for us on the Hwy 218 road access. He asked the following “did you guys have an incident while hunting” I said of course we did, but we were on B.L.M. and showed him the maps that we had, which were made up of old technology and Garmin GPS to outline all of the B.L.M. and had it color coded, with our tracks going in and out. We were carrying the first Topo mapping Garmin GPS that had come out in 2000. We all thought it was over with the proof that we were legal. Well 9 months later we get ticketed for Criminal Trespassing. The same O.S.P. (Oregon State Police) Game Officer from Bend, Oregon drove over to issue the tickets to us in Oregon City, Oregon. I asked him why, since I had an O.S.P. Game Officer as a neighbor and the Senior O.S.P. Game Officer some 4 houses away. His comment “was he had to do it, as Craig I., said he saw you Trespassing”. Then the next comment was “you know you’ll get off on the Trespassing” and I said yes, but we have to hire 3 lawyers!
What the heck i will share the past. Remember only horses for human foot traffic in the area. Private Land Owners can change the demographics for all with the B.L.M…
In conclusion: The DA of Wasco County didn’t want anything to do with it, as we had the evidence that we were innocent of Trespassing on Young Life.
Comments made by the others hunting BLM, old combat veterans “why didn’t you have a firefight Frank?” It was in jest, but reality we were held at bay with handguns, which should have been kidnapping!
The above story now leads into why a hunters or outdoor people should have a Garmin GPS and onXmaps HUNT Mapping Software. The technology that I used back then took a great deal of time and resources to get it done. Now it takes about 15 minutes to have the advance technology on your computer and your GPS to be 100% sure of where your hunting.
Many of my hunters have waited 10 to 20 years to draw a premium tag to hunt deer, elk and especially pronghorn. I don’t put the sheep or goats in the picture as it might never happen and at least in the State of Oregon, the ODFW Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will help you in locations of goats and sheep. Funny though that many sheep and goats work between private and public land!
The mapping software can be used as a tool to find the private land owners when you see a herd of maybe a 100 Pronghorn in the Alfalfa and most likely get permission to hunt for free!
Many figure they don’t need this type of equipment that paper maps will work just fine for them!
I have given an example of government paper map in the below picture and a picture from onXmaps HUNT so you can compare the difference.
This is what Brett thought he was hunting with National Forest cross fences and coming in from the 160 road working north.
What Brett ended up on was one of the south corner triangle pieces below the Ochoco Creek Rd. with no corner fences. There were no signs either on the land and it was all open timber. Brett was ticketed with a word from the Game Officer he could pay restitution of up to $6250.00 (FOR REAL) to the landowner. Brett offered to put of No Trespassing Signs, the landowner took the signs from Brett and he went to court. He did show the Judge in that particular county a Government Map, which helped a little, but still paid a fine to the court.
I am now informed that landowners do not have to post their lands. So in areas such as National Forest that has private mingle within and no fences, it is your responsibility to know the private (At least Oregon).
onXmapsHUNT has maps for almost every state in CONUS and the great state of Alaska has a map.
I recommend this product with utmost confidence that you’ll have memorial and successful hunts and trips without hassle.
Many times I am outspoken on many subjects and on this subject I am rightly so.
I have written this because of the trio that walked into Iran and were taken as prisoners. There was not excuse for them at all and I feel they got what they deserved for trespassing in a foreign land without permission. Only in the U.S.A. can you trespass and not get arrested in most cases!
How many times do we hear of hikers, hunters, fisherman, Boy Scouts, Mountain Climbers and even the Christmas Tree hunters being lost! Then a team of searcher’s has to go out and look for them for days, months and even of the course of years. Many years ago a young child was lost near LaPine, OR on a Christmas Tree Hunt. He as never found, fowl play or just lost? As for small children there are devices from Garmin (I feel Garmin is #1 in technology) that are used for hunting dogs to keep track of where they are. Kids can move quickly and have a habit of always wearing the patience of the parents in movement!
In the old days before modern technology it could happen pretty easy, I know I have been mixed up on a couple of hunting trips myself in the old day of the last century. It could have helped though to taken out the old standard compass and map!
On one occasion on a deer hunt near Walton Lake in Oregon, could not remember which direction to go in getting back to camp. It was early so I took a nap next to a logging road, another hunter came along at gave me directions. Another time in the Snake River Canyon on an elk hunt, I came out at dark in dark timber on the trail-head and my horse had been moved from the trail-head by a hunting buddy (don’t hunt with him anymore). I was lucky to hear my horse bay and found him in the darkness of the night and road him the 4 miles out to our base camp in a snow storm.
With today’s technology and low cost of such items as a GPS, and with the new Garmin’s that high sensitivity antennas, cell phones, 20+ mile range handhelds like the Motorola’s and Beacon Locator’s (sell for 99 bucks), there is no excuse to be left in the wild. That is not to say someone or ones can not be in trouble in the field and need assistance to get out. This can happen to anyone in a matter of seconds.
Motorola Handheld 20 mile line of sight rangeBeacon w/GPSGarmin 62 Series-Works in Timber
To many times there are people lost within 200yards to 1/2 mile of their central location such as the vehicle, being so close and not knowing!
I do not go anywhere, even on a short hunt of an area that I know without a Cell Phone and at least (1) of my Garmin GPS’s. Plus I usually have a paper map to go along with the GPS. My Garmin’s all have TOPO and the maps have been setup in areas that go into.
I do know that some people feel they do not need such equipment and it weights too much to carry or the cost of such items, why spend the money… Spend the money, HMM, like the trio that came from the East Coast to mountain climb Mt. Hood in a snow storm. I am sure in their minds they knew everything about the tame mountain in the Pacific Northwest. Mt. Hood as with any mountain or wilderness is not tame in the winter months. They lost there lives, did they fall into a crevasses, fall off a cliff, get to cold or did they just lose their way… With proper equipment of technology they could have been saved or found within a reasonable time.
As it is said don’t leave home without it, a small price to pay for a piece of mind or saving yourself.
