Cyber scouting

[Swamp_bucks]

How many people take advantage of cyber scouting to help narrow down places to hunt?  
 

I’ve really started using cyber scouting more to help me narrow spots down better before I waste gas driving to or around the desired area.  Granted you can’t see trails in hardwoods but it is great for CRP fields and swamps to really figure out their travel patterns.  The pictures are a spot I found last year doing this method.  It’s a swamp that’s maybe 25acres but had 5 bucks to my knowledge living in and around from hunting the area and visually seeing them.  
 

maybe this will help a new hunter with scouting or add another way to scout for a seasoned hunter.  

[ncountry]

Absolutely.. For me it has been a huge time saver.

In the past, when hunting a new chunk of land I would spend countless days wandering a new chunk of land until I had a good picture in my my mind of what the land looked like and how the deer used it. When the pieces were far from home my hunts were not near as productive as they could be because I spent too much time exploring. 

   Now I can go into a new area and know what it looks like and hunt the "best " spots emmediately  .

Here's a screen shot of spots I've scouted and have hunted or plan on hunting. Lol

Edited August 5, 2022 by ncountry

[BowmanMike]

I do to narrow down what areas I will check in person.

[phade]

One thing I will say about it is that there are many more tools beyond Onyx for this. If all you are using are one or two phone apps, you might be missing critical info. 

Aerials and topo overlays can really present a strong picture of the land to hunt terrain and likely movement patterns. It has reduced initial scouting time significantly for me.

[Jeremy K]

1 hour ago, phade said:

One thing I will say about it is that there are many more tools beyond Onyx for this. If all you are using are one or two phone apps, you might be missing critical info. 

Aerials and topo overlays can really present a strong picture of the land to hunt terrain and likely movement patterns. It has reduced initial scouting time significantly for me.

OnX has terrain ,satellite and a hybrid of both. 

[BizCT]

I use ONX moreso for property boundaries and to find the names of landowners, but the actual lines seem to be off lots of times (cutting through pools, etc.). That said I still pay $100/year for it for all 50 states

[G-Man]

14 minutes ago, BizCT said:

I use ONX moreso for property boundaries and to find the names of landowners, but the actual lines seem to be off lots of times (cutting through pools, etc.). That said I still pay $100/year for it for all 50 states

Lines always seem shifted . If you actually know a point on a line you can see how much its shifted and extrapolate the entire line is off by 10 ft...ect.. helpful in woods that are not posted through out

[phade]

1 hour ago, Jeremy K said:

OnX has terrain ,satellite and a hybrid of both. 

Yeah, but if all you are using is Onyx, you're likely missing out on really important info. This topic is a mile deep so I am not going to dive in head first, but in general, there are different views, degrees of image clarity, seasonal imaging, etc. from various mapping sources. What Onyx may not show clearly another platform will - even if you think Onyx shows something well, you might be surprised to find out what you're missing from other views. One aerial or GIS source is not the same as another and none do it consistently better than another. You need to use multiple sources. 

[Jeremy K]

4 minutes ago, phade said:

Yeah, but if all you are using is Onyx, you're likely missing out on really important info. This topic is a mile deep so I am not going to dive in head first, but in general, there are different views, degrees of image clarity, seasonal imaging, etc. from various mapping sources. What Onyx may not show clearly another platform will - even if you think Onyx shows something well, you might be surprised to find out what you're missing from other views. One aerial or GIS source is not the same as another and none do it consistently better than another. You need to use multiple sources. 

I'm not a fan of the quality of the onX images. It has some nice features ,especially if you're sending waypoints to other people and attaching pics to those waypoints is nice.  

Edited August 5, 2022 by Jeremy K

[Swamp_bucks]

7 hours ago, phade said:

One thing I will say about it is that there are many more tools beyond Onyx for this. If all you are using are one or two phone apps, you might be missing critical info. 

Aerials and topo overlays can really present a strong picture of the land to hunt terrain and likely movement patterns. It has reduced initial scouting time significantly for me.

Yea I agree I use HuntStand, google earth and the DEC website to get info on the pieces I plan to hunt.  My favorite feature is the topo/aerial on HuntStand especially in the hills helps me narrow down bedding points and  for me to see what is the leeward side depending on wind.  

[ridgerunner88]

Checkout www.caltopo.com

This guy has a great 2 part tutorial.. its a great compliment to OnX

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[The_Real_TCIII]

After a miserable morning with Onx Saturday Im done with it. Moving to HuntStand. This was a pretty good review video

 

[Swamp_bucks]

10 minutes ago, The_Real_TCIII said:

After a miserable morning with Onx Saturday Im done with it. Moving to HuntStand. This was a pretty good review video

 

I’ve been running huntstand for a long time now.  Love how easy it is to use and the images are great. 

[Robhuntandfish]

Been using hunt stand for years. It's always worked well for me

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[The_Real_TCIII]

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[Cabin Fever]

4 hours ago, The_Real_TCIII said:

After a miserable morning with Onx Saturday Im done with it. Moving to HuntStand. This was a pretty good review video

 

Cool video! Can't believe the difference in clarity! I knew my OnX subscription would be renewing very soon, and thought I'd just pull the plug on it and try Huntstand instead. I looked at my OnX account and it just automatically renewed yesterday! LOL  Oh well!! I pretty much only use it to keep track of cams and stand locations anyways...

[phade]

I am going to check out Spartan Forge.

All that said, I still don't have an app I like better than some of the County GIS sites that contract with Eagle View and other providers. I use several but I wish Eagle View would get in on the game. It's just small potatoes for them.