Use Your Smart Phone While Tracking Wounded Game
Russ Chastain 08.19.19
A friend recently sent me a link to this video, and this seems like a great thing to share with y’all, especially this time of year as deer season approaches. Although it’s specifically touting an app called “onX Hunt,” the method being applied is sound and I’ve used it myself using a handheld GPS.
Say you’ve wounded an animal and it runs away. This is far from ideal, but if you hunt long enough it will happen to you. It can be very helpful to store waypoints along that trail, so you can refer back to it when you need to regroup.
Paired with topo maps, this can sometimes illustrate whether the animal was strong or becoming more weak as it traveled along the trail you’re taking. If it’s climbing, it’s probably strong. Walking along the same elevation or contour, it may be weakening. And moving downhill may very well indicate that your prey is weakening and will soon expire.
Sometimes there’s little or no blood or other sign to follow — most experienced hunters have been in that situation. When you need to simply search for an animal because you have no way to track it, recording your path on a map can help ensure you get good coverage of the entire area. See a gap in your grid pattern? Go check there, just in case.
Check out the video and see what you think. I have not used this app; have you? I would love to hear what other hunters think of it.