Every now and then you find a hunting method or product that’s so good you don’t want to tell anyone about it. Since assuming the Hunting Editor’s position here at TTAG, that’s no longer an option. So I’m sharing one of my best-kept secrets: the Sportsman Tracker.
I love to use this app at a ranch before a scheduled hunt. You plug in your exact location, ranch, or hunting lease and the app predicts your hunting conditions. It even tells you the best spot to hunt. You can store multiple locations and even multiple spots on one property.
You can also track game according to species: deer, turkey, hogs and more. Sposrtsman Tracker takes data from animal behavior, wind, weather, season and more to make its predictions.
The main app interface: a map in hybrid or satellite form. You enter the type of animal you’re hunting at the location and receive an instant treasure trove of information, from wind to moon phases. The app also has a social function that allows users to post animals they are harvesting according to area. You might be able to see what deer your neighbor took this year.
When I lived on a ranch, I used Sportsman Tracker to determine the best hunting spots. It was amazingly accurate. Last year, when I was away from the ranch I used it to determine the best days to visit the ranch to hunt. That year Texas had a very late rut season. At every step, the app was accurate predicting — to the day — when the rut would start.
Not only is this app a successful guide, it’s also educational. It will teach you about conditions and animal behavior. I have no doubt Sportsman Tracker will become one of your new favorite tools and possibly a new addiction.
That kind of technology kinda redefines the definition of “hunting” doesn’t it? I think this tips the scale to unfair advantage. Kinda like spotlighting.
We live in the technology age! No reason we cant hunt with modern tools!
Yeah. Using high-power rifles with 10x magnification optics, planted food plots at the end of pre-cut shooting lanes, camouflage, scent blockers, cammo elevated blinds, binoculars… THATS perfectly fair and sporting. But give me a smartphone app that shows me which way the wind is blowing and what phase the moon is in… DISGUSTING!
Yea,.. there’s a fat-ton of advantages to having opposable digits and the ability to solve problems has brought us a long long way. You mentioned some of my favorite human technological advances. You left out a few though. Motorcycles, cars, drive thru eateries, condoms, industrial strength personal lubricant, Tinder, the printed book, the American Republic, and the 270 Winchester.
You want fair, Joseph?
Go run down a deer using your two legs only and kill the deer with only your bare hands.
Be sure to let us know how your “fair” hunt turned out.
Lol I love this comment
Well,… there’s that guy that used a spear to hunt bear. Which is kinda cool…. I think….
that’s pretty neat.
Now, If someone comes up with an app that uses GPS to tell me when I enter private land or enter a different GMU that I don’t have a permit for.
🙁
Look for the “Hunt by OnXmaps” application from the makers of http://www.huntinggpsmaps.com …
I have onX on my phone. Totally useless where I hunted elk. Zero cell service.
Ms. Austin, does sportsman tracker require cell service?
OnX allows you to DL off-line maps for hunting with, just like my old fav (and now discontinued) GPS Hunt by Trimble (previously Cabela’s). That way you can turn off everything (airplane mode on some phones) and not suck down your battery trying to find a signal. You might want to take another look at the app, it does a pretty good job.
Having a 3 inch map doesn’t do any good when you don’t know where you are…
I believe it uses cell towers in remote locations yes.. i have used it in remote areas and although some of the functions are disabled the map still works
It took a minute of digging through the website to find an Smartphone App.. but it seems like just the ticket, thank you for the heads up!
lol I concur that would be neat! To also determine your own property lines
You need to buy a dedicated GPS for what you want to do. I have the ONX chip in my Garmin and it is outstanding.
By the way, the app is called “The Fishing Forecast and Hunting Forecast Best Times App”, and is made by Sportsman Tracker.
Sounds like an attempt at improving the old Solunar tables we used to use, not unsportsmanlike behavior as an earlier comment claims.
AGreed, it’s a tool for the times
So, Ms. Austin, how long you been hunting again?
Some of her hunting pictures here:
http://www.imgrum.net/user/liberteaustin/1423793109/1266684163863386181_1423793109
Warning: may not be SFW
I’ve been hunting for 10 years this season
I have tried using it. I found it to be hard to use and not worth the time. I know more about the animals I hunt in the areas that I hunt.
I’m with Lance. Although I use an app to,mark stands so my wife knows where I’ll be and guys I take can find them.
For hunting I scout, well really after all these years on the same property I know their routes , can I’d pinch points myself, know where doe bed, as well as older bucks . but mostly I only hunt a stand if the wind is perfect and check it constantly with milk weed.
It’s rut here now and the bucks are running around all stupid, saw 14 Fri ( very good for Western NY) and killed one at 20 yards, (bow) watched him drop 80 yards away , and get this I dragged him out ! Yep took two hours to get him to my Buick and on the hitch hauler oh and I’m pushing 60 . Make an app for that ….
No bait, feeders or apps to pick my spot needed
I have found this to be most useful on paid hunts.. you get a jump on knowledge of someone else’s property you otherwise would have to rely on a guide for