Some basic principles on how to use a topographic map that describe briefly what a contour line is and rules that apply to them are as follows.  This is not a do all guide so if you’re preparing for a hunting excursion on land you never hunted either get a guide or talk with your local DEC and they would be more than happy to get you the information you need.

Contour lines will never cross one another. Each one represents a separate elevation and elevation is determined by how far above or below sea level the point on the map is. I should say elevation is determined by two points on the map which represents different heights on the earth surface. Sea level is used as a basis to measure these points.

Most topo maps will define streams and rivers with a blue line, but a good rule of thumb to remember is streams will form a V shape on the map, the sampled elevations determine which way the stream is flowing. Knowing features about streams can help you while hunting deer by determining were deer will cross a stream. Plus when you are following a blood trail deer often head to a stream depending on where your shot entered.

Upstream is defined as in the direction opposite to the flow of a stream.

Downstream is defined as in the direction of or nearer to the mouth of a stream.

Mouth of a stream is where the water flows to, water flows from upstream to downstream and ending up in the mouth of the stream.

A series of closed contour lines represents a hill, mountain, plateau or oblong ridge. These closed lines form a circular or oblong shape. If there are series of small hatch marks inside the circle this indicates a depression.

The closer the contour lines the steeper the terrain. Spaced contour lines represent a small grade or gradual slope. Contour lines that are close to another line with one being doted represent an overhanging cliff. Repeated lines represent a ridge top or plateau.

The bold contour lines represent the hundred foot mark. Say for instance 1600 feet and 1700 feet are both bold the distance between the two of them is a hundred feet. The contour lines between the two are twenty five feet. So the contour line represents 1600-1625 feet, 1625-1650 feet, 1650-1675 feet and 1675-1700 feet. Check the diagram below provided for visual learners.

Two double dotted black lines that run parallel to one another represent a seasonal road usually need a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get through them. Two black lines represent a paved road. If the lines are not continuous it means the road is a dead end.

A solid red line represents a route and along the route the black squares represent houses. A red and white line represents a county road.

Check back next week on how to use a topo map to help you when your hunting deer. Understanding how to use a topographic map is fairly simple once you know the rules of the road. I know this guide has taught you the basics and to help you follow along in our next article about using topo maps to plan your next hunt. They are simply another tool in our arsenal to help us better understand deer movement.

Using Topographic Maps is a post from: Hunting Deer

The follow picture shows the output of a program called heavy weather from a home hunting weather station I own by LaCrosse. The program fetches the data from the weather station receiver and imports the concise data into the software program.

This data can them be imported into programs like excel and you can configure out wind trends by weekly or bimonthly. After you get significant amount of data it can be compared by yearly. You can guestimate with the data and prepare a strategy for hunting wind trends.

The variables a hunting weather station can record are unlimited as far as what a local weather station can give you but the biggest factor that has me hooked on using a home weather station one is the data is relevant to the area and terrain I hunt. A local weather station could be up to one hundred miles away, not only can the temperature vary greatly within a hundred miles but the wind direction could be off as well as barometric pressure. Simply put yes you can track strong prevalent winds but if you live at a different elevation the wind direction can be ever changing. So that is were home weather station play the optimal role, they gives us data relevant to the places we hunt.

Bear with me on my excel skill I need to finesse them but below you can see a representation of wind direction over a 24 hour period. The wind primarily came out of the west with three wind direction changes one at 11 am were the wind shifted to a NNW wind,the other at 6 pm with another NNW wind change, and the lat at 9 pm with a North wind change.

As you can gather this information is very useful when looking for patterns over time. They can and will decide which area to hunt on what day and hopefully what time to hunt. The more inofrmation we have before hand the more of an edge we can get on the bucks we hunt. We then can concentrate on other aspects of the hunt like target practicing instead of trying to figure out why the wind does not work to your adbvantage. The great part about it is that watching for weather patterns can be a year round activity whether it is showing your kids how you track deer with the wind or for personal enjoyment.

The price of a portable hunting weather station can set you back from anywhere to $50.00 to 5,000 dollars depending on how accurate you need the device to be. Not only can these devices track wind direction but barometric pressure as well. It is widely known that animals will change their feeding and movement pattern to the barometric pressure.

Check back later I plan on doing some video tutorials on how to edit your data in excel and make a PowerPoint presentation to impress your hunting buddies. With that good luck hunting and see you next time.

Hunting Wind Trends is a post from: Hunting Deer

I  just finished filling the outdoor wood stove up and it is cold enough out that when you breathe in the freezing air, your nostrils hairs stick together. As I stood there enjoying the warmth of the fire pondered the strategies deer use to survive in these bitter cold temperatures. How resilient whitetail deer must be to withstand freezing cold temperatures day in and day out in the northern climates. Our daily experiences give us a respect for the prey we attempt to harvest each year. Deer survival and is often misunderstood.
In this chart below you can see a representation of the temperature over the last fifty hours. As you can see it has been below thirty degrees Fahrenheit the majority of the time.

The farther you go north the more deer gather in what we call wintering deer yards. Deer yards serve many purposes but let me first explain what a deer yard is, simply stated it is a group of anywhere from twenty five to hundreds of deer gathering in a small area during winters most extreme conditions. You tend to see more yards when the depth of snow is so deep it hinders movement. Hunting deer season is usually closed by the time deer start forming into yards. Shooting deer from a deer yard is considered unethical.

These wintering yards which are used year after year offer protection from predators such as wolves, coyotes and mountain lions. The protection comes in the form of the more deer the less a predator will think it is wise to make an attack. A predator will hunt on the fringes of the deer yard and will only attack if the deer present an easy kill. Deer that are in poor shape will be the prime target for predators.

Some say they yard up to conserve heat but I disagree. The deer is adapted for cold temperatures. Their coat is made up of hollow short hair. This hair acts as insulation for the deer. The deer can be covered in snow but the snow that lands on their coat will not melt. So the body heat generated by the deer is kept in the body and cannot escape but only through the mouth and the nose. When a deer lies down in their bed they tuck their legs underneath them to conserve heat. It is also known that deer activity will rise in severe cold temperatures; the more active the deer is the higher the body temperature rises.

This increase in activity often occurs just before the first snow fall; deer will increase their activity to adjust to the seasonal changes in weather. It is thought that deer are very good predictors of a storm front that is about to move in; although not scientifically proven it is due to the decrease in the barometric pressure. Although I think a lot has to do with how fast the pressure drops, if the barometric pressure drops in the winter it is a usually the sign of a storm forming. This information are useful when we are hunting deer.

Deer yard mortality rate is one of the most controversial topics when it comes to scientific perspective to a deer hunter’s perspective. Hunters that enjoy hunting deer feel the need to help deer survive through the wintering deer yard process. They will feed the deer to reduce the mortality rate. For wildlife biologists this is a double edged sword on one hand we care for the animals we study but on the other hand we understand how important it is not to alter that eco system. Deer density is determined by the habitat and the poundage of forage available. If you let deer survive and reduce the overall deer yard moralities that increase the overall herd density for that year. Compound that effect year in and out you will soon have a population problem. It puts pressure on the available forage and in some cases diminishes the available forage beyond repair. So winter deer yard mortality is essential and necessary for the overall health of the whitetail population.

Deer Survival is a post from: Hunting Deer

It is necessary to cover some basic principles which include efficiently fetching longitude latitude coordinates, programs and what have to offer, seamlessly combining maps, integrate coordinates of deer sign and interpreting topographic maps. These will not only help your hunting tactics year after year but you will help you to consistently predict whitetail deer movement.  These technologies and techniques should not replace field scouting but will give you a chance to strategize without spooking deer out of your area. Field scouting is beyond the scope of this tutorial but I will explain in-depth field scouting tips and techniques that have worked for me when fetching data in a latter article
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If you’re looking at a globe of the earth latitude lines run horizontally east to west with the horizon. Some also remember it by using a mnemonic phrase ladder-tude. The longitude lines on the globe are split in the same direction like the rungs on a ladder so hence the mnemonic phrase ladder-tude.  So therefore the longitude lines run directly north and south opposite of latitude lines.

Finding the longitude and latitude coordinates can be done without having to be a professional cartographer. Simply follow the link to the following website http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html Next type in your address of where you hunt and right click a flag onto the map. This will output the longitude and latitude coordinates under the bottom left of the interactive map so they can copied and pasted into the program of your choice.

What made me a TopoFusion Pro fan? Features like being able to import maps, import routes/waypoints and import time stamped pictures to match up with those routes/waypoints and built in combination map feature.  Some of these features are available with Google Earth but I will be only covering how to download a topographic and aerial map, with a visual explanation on how to combine those maps in Photoshop.

Here is the default view of TopoFusion Pro..

In this next picture you can see how easily it is to exaggerate the shader relief option to spot natural funnels.

In this next picture you can adjust the opacity right within the program itself for two separate maps. Number one it does not require any Photoshop editing and two it matches the maps up perfectly with no need for added adjustments.

This next picture shows a description field where I found it very useful to record wind, weather condition and use it as a hunting log book.

The following picture is the most useful resource that TopoFusion Pro offers me as a hunter that loves hunting deer. Although the program was intended to map biking trails throughout the country it is a very useful tool for hunting. You can see you can easily import you gps waypoints and routes directly into the program. Simply hook up you gps handheld via usb port and the program will recognize it. You simply use the import function and you can import your time stamped data directly into your map.

Secondly is the ability to import pictures that you took in the field.  Digital camera’s timestamp pictures within the properties.  When I am scouting I take my gps handheld which is a Garmin Colorado 400t and I take my digital camera along with me. Let’s say for an example I spot a buck rub I will set a waypoint with my gps handheld then take a picture of the buck rub. When I get home I import both the picture and waypoint into Topofusion. The waypoints will automatically line up with the picture by comparing the timestamps. It then inserts the picture and waypoint into your map. When I first found out about this technology I was very excited because it is a very powerful tool to have as a hunter.

Finally I wanted to cover how to overlay two separate maps within Photoshop. It is actually very simple I have created a YouTube Video here on how to do it or you can continue to read on.

You open up both pictures you want to use in Photoshop

Select the move tool.

You then put the cursor over the center of one picture hold down with the left mouse button and drag the picture onto the other picture.

You can now close the picture you dragged from.

Now on the right hand side of the screen you will see a tab called layers with in that tab you will the    word opacity.

Simply drag the opacity bar to the look you like then save the file.

Check back often for more how to centering around hunting deer.

Hunting Deer Topo is a post from: Hunting Deer

Our persistence is defined as being active in the off season. Whether we are out in the woods looking for new trails or looking for new bedding areas, these are all forms of being persistent. Some key tools are necessary to gives us that edge that many hunters do not regularly use. One is making use of a handheld gps technology. Many of the top brands on the market are affordable yet effective. You can literally map a whole deer trail with them or the dimensions of your food plot. We soon learn we can pattern deer movement throughout the season, setting up a waypoint each time we encounter deer. This technology gives us an edge that many of our grandfathers never had. Once the data is collected it can be uploaded to your computer and opened up in software. That is where you can attach pictures along with gps tracks and waypoints. I have hundreds of pictures of rubs, rub lines, deer scrapes and deer tracks. Each picture has a gps waypoint attached to it. You soon find hotspots and set up your tree stand corresponding to those hotspots. I will cover in detail in a future article how to map a deer trail and sign with a gps please check back. These things will ensure success at hunting deer.

Dedication is defined by a hunter keeping good logbooks year round. With the new technology hitting the market each day we as hunters can use this technology in ways it was not intended to be used. Deer logbook software on the market is limited at best. I know some software out currently that makes you store your data on their servers. The problem with this is most hunters are tight lipped hunters. Which I don’t blame them I refuse to give access to my information I have collected to someone I don’t even know. Once you upload your information in most cases you write of the rights to that data. I use programs that keep the data safe and secure on your computer. I recommend backing up that data onto external hard drives, usb drives or both. I personally had a full year of data being destroyed because I did not back it up. Learn from my mistake and keep your gps data backed up on two other forms of media.

Fortitude is obtained by your experiences of being persistent in dedicated to your field. If you follow these steps you will be a successful hunter. Success is a personal decision that every hunter defines. To me success is to know your prey, hunt them under the conditions they offer and successfully harvesting any deer through your hard work. That is what hunting deer is all about.

Defining Hunting Deer is a post from: Hunting Deer