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Online Scouting

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Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 04, 2018 •  [Post 1]

This one’s for you Robloft....

Everyone does their share of online scouting. New elk hunters have to start somewhere and have a lot to learn about finding elk in general. At some point experienced hunters are looking at new areas. Lots of times we are just expanding the horizons of the places we already hunt.

There are different resources. Google Earth. Online mapping sites such as Game Planner and My Topo. If you’ve narrowed it down already and bought maps you might sit ans state at topos like I do. It’s amazing how I can look at a map I’ve owned for 5 years and always notice something that somehow never caught my eye before.

So I’m looking for two things from this thread. First I’d like to hear from the veterans. What resources do you focus on for scouting from home. What are you looking for when you sit down and start digging in to topos and satellite imagery? More importantly how do you decide what area you even begin to focus on?

Second... you newer guys: What is your take? What resources do you prefer and why? What do you think you should be looking for in them? And last but not least..... do you have any questions about online scouting?
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 04, 2018 •  [Post 2]

I’ve been asked more than once... what is a bench and what do they look like on a topo map. Another good word for bench would be shelf. A flat spot on the side of a wall to sit things.

First you need to know what you’re looking at on a topo. Each line is a countour interval. In other words each one represents another step up or down hill, usually 40 feet. If the lines are close together it means that 40 feet of elevation gain took place over a shorter distance. In other words it’s steeper. Lines nearly touching each other is a cliff. So lines that are further apart indicates flatter ground.

A bench is a flatter area that has steeper slopes above and below it. So on a map it would be lines that are spaced wider with the lines on either side closer together.

What does this mean to an elk hunter? Elk will use the path of least resistance to travel. Sure they can and do travel straight up and down steep hills if necessary. But they will regularly travel along these benches. It’s easier and a good way to cover ground with less energy. Last but not least benches are also used to bed. Elk can hear anything approaching from above especially if some loose rocks roll downhill and the thermals bring scent up from below. Follow benches and eventually you’ll see where they go which is either to bed or to feed. Nenches can run a long way. Mark my word whether it’s up high, down low... or both, every hill benches out somewhere.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Navesgane » 02 04, 2018 •  [Post 3]

Good info, thanks! I like caltopo online mapping. You can create and label spots, make lines and a lot of other things that I'm unaware of. There are tons of layovers such as public land boundaries and such. You can also switch between Topo, uscg and satellite maps all with keeping your marks. Another feature I like on it is using the shading- you can put in a certain month and time and see which areas will be shaded. I think it's a good use of finding early (warm) and late (cold) season "potential" bedding areas.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Swede » 02 04, 2018 •  [Post 4]

I am a bow hunter that will be out in late August and much of September. I certainly understand how difficult it would be to effectively use a topographic map if you don't readily comprehend what all the lines mean.

I go from large to small. After selecting a general area to look over, I go back and forth between a good topographic map and satellite imagery. I am looking at vegetation, trails and topographic features. I look for feeding, bedding areas, and trails in between. Openings in heavily timbered areas are key. Timber in open regions is what I look over. In drier environments I look for water hole/springs. Timber covered benches with nearby springs are good. Saddles above feeding areas are marked Large areas that are funneled into a small pass are good to check.
Right now, I have a new paper topographic map with 16 numbered spots. The coordinates are written on a separate piece of paper with some other information written about each location. When I go out this next summer, I will put the coordinates into my GPS and check them out. If history is any indicator, probably most will be useless and be deleted from my GPS. I could find something else in the area I did not see on the map or satellite photos. Those spots will be saved on the GPS and logged into my book. Hopefully I find 4-5 good locations to set a tree stand up at.
Scouting at home helps you chose how and where you will wear out your boots when you get on the ground. Sometimes you return home with tired feet and disappointed, but sometimes you discover a real gem.
It is not an exact science at all.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Lefty » 02 04, 2018 •  [Post 5]

I have used google earth found some neat stuff. Generallly Im looking at the way and type of ground cover.
However topos I think are overlooked by new/young hunters. Water, seeps and springs, elevation and slope can be huge
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Tigger » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 6]

I will pose a couple of questions that I am betting many others are thinking. How can you tell what is a bedding for feeding area? Everyone says look for them, but how? The place we go in WY is mostly black timber....so to me, that is all potential bedding area. How does one find a bedding area to target amidst a huge area of black timber?

Similarly, how do you find feeding areas? In MT where we hunted last year, it had thousands upon thousands of acres of grass. How do you find a likely feeding area from your desk? Even the area we hunted in WY has openings here and there. What makes one more desirable than another when looking at it from your computer?
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 7]

How can you spot bedding and feeding areas online? You can’t!

You can peg travel routes. But pinpointing where elk decide to stop to feed or lay down is a boots on the ground thing. In Montana the elk I hunt are rarely in the open during shooting hours. During archery the feed in the timber and in late rifle they may feed in the meadows but only at night. The elk I hunt in Wyoming make a living in the open parks and meadows. Not only do they stay out there feeding long after the sun comes up but they often bed down right in the open. Which opening on a given day is anybody’s guess. I know from experience which ones to check first but there are never any guarantees.

Same goes for bedding areas. Other than reliable word of mouth the only way to inow which hole or finger elk prefer to camp out on is through hands on experience. That’s what makes my business successful. Hunters can roll the dice and scout online and see what happens. Or they can decide that after paying for a license, taking off from work, any gearing up for a hunt, rolling the dice isn’t something they want to do. You can figure out if a unit generally holds a decent population of elk. But even a summer scouting trip isn’t always productive. The places elk bed and feed are weather dependent. It’s highly unlikely you’ll find them in the same spots come fall that you did in the summer. The other major factor that dictates elk location is hunting pressure. Online scouting and summer trips can’t tell you that.

Online scouting can mainly tell you where elk will most likely be IF they ate in the area. Qualifying an area before you scout it from home is just as important as knowing for sure it’s worth hunting before you set camp.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby >>>---WW----> » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 8]

Just because the topo may point out a few good looking areas doesn't necessarily mean that is where the elk are. Same thing goes for elk tracks. Tracks tell you where they were, not where they are.

Both may give you a good place to start. But nothing beats wearing out shoe leather. One of the great things I especially like about topos is if you know how to read them, they show me the easiest way to get up a mountain with the least effort.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 9]

Topos are where it’s at. I look at sat images but only to see where I might walk or hunt not where elk might be.

As far as bedding goes I pay no attention to the north slope theory. Yes elk bed there but there are plenty of shady holes on south slopes and thats where the food is so elk will bed there if they can.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby robloft » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 10]

Thanks Indian Summer. Hopefully this will help some new hunters out.


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Re: Online Scouting

Postby robloft » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 11]

I saw this image on another forum talking about this same thing. The blue lines are roads. This is all private land. Not even sure where it is. Based off this what looks like a good area to see elk? Where might the bed down? If you'd like you can save the image and draw on it and repost it.

f830b3b303e637d40deb4b1f8869d0ad.jpg



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Re: Online Scouting

Postby CurlyTail » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 12]

I like to open 4 windows on the computer. One will be a google earth map of my area of interest. Two will be the National Forest Service motor vehicle use map (NFMVUM) - so I can see what roads are open, and which are gated. Third will be a Map showing Elk summer range, winter range and migration corridors. Fourth would be a map showing land ownership ie. national forest,BLM, private land. By going back and forth on the various windows, you can get a pretty good idea which areas are likely to contain elk, and how easy or difficult the access might be.

The Colorado Elk Hunt Atlas has all of these four layers incorporated in one map. Other states you have to pull up maps from various sources.

On thing you cannot determine from a map is Hunting Pressure. Unless you show up at that area at that time of year, you have no idea if that might be your next secret spot, or if it is Grand Central Station.

Be aware that Google Earth tends to make everything look less steep than it really is. Also, my favorite hunting spot looks terrible on Google Earth, so areas tend to have more grass and cover that you can see on Google Earth. You can change the settings in Google Earth to make is look more realistic - goto Tools....then Options....then Terrain... and enter 1.3 Then the steep stuff actually looks steep.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Swede » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 13]

You cannot identify elk bedding grounds from just a map, or from just aerial photos. By knowing an area has elk, it is not too difficult to determine bedding and feeding places, for some areas by looking at both a good topo map and photos. Obviously some units have so much timbered slopes that the elk can bed anywhere. The same can be said about feeding locations. Where I hunt, the September day time bedding areas are the places with fairly dense timber that have benches. The elk use these until they leave for the public land. The benches half way, or more up the slope are the most likely locations for the elk to bed. The elk generally go to feed in the more open spots even if that place is on the ranch. When they are on the ranch it does not matter where they bed, because you can't go there and they are not coming out until the ranch owner/associates start shooting at them.
I guess I would not say a person cannot locate bedding areas on their computer, but rather in many areas you cannot isolate one or even a few small spots where elk are likely to bed. Such was the case where I hunted with RJ over in Idaho last year.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Elkduds » 02 05, 2018 •  [Post 14]

robloft wrote:I saw this image on another forum talking about this same thing. The blue lines are roads. This is all private land. Not even sure where it is. Based off this what looks like a good area to see elk? Where might the bed down? If you'd like you can save the image and draw on it and repost it.

f830b3b303e637d40deb4b1f8869d0ad.jpg



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Northeast corner of GMU 83, CO. Everything south of the red line is private FYI:

https://ndismaps.nrel.colostate.edu/ind ... ntingAtlas

This Colorado atlas is really worth a look. It has overlays for FS MVUM; summer/winter range w migration routes by big game species, public land, topo, sat view, more.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 15]

Robloft, First there are a TON of trails in that area. So Id be curious how many people are hunting there. Nowhere do I see a place with more than a half mile between pack trails. Yuk! But for the sake of answering your question Ill just look at the contour lines and pretend the trails aren’t there. In the top left... I assume NW corner of the map theres a nice long bench. It runs south between the words San and Isabel. It’s pretty steep to the east. It runs along a creek. As you make your way south there are a couple holes to the east north and south of the one that tops out at Iron Nipple. They look to be worth checking out. The shading is white which means open. I’d be curious if its grass, rock, or burn. I like that it’s steep all around so the elk will be funneled to an area where I can find them or at least their travel routes. The pack trail ends on the map but I’d guess one continues up to the lake and so I’d be wondering if anyone camps there. I’m positive that if there are elk around there’s a trail through that saddle south of Iron Nipple that goes to the nice looking area east of Mt Lindsey which is private. If elk were to head for safety on private land on day one I can see them rolling through there. Same goes for the other saddle just SW of that between the words Sierra and Blanco. That trail would definitely stay high to the east below Blanco Peak and follow that bench south above the lakes toward Hamilton Peak.

Nothing else on that map really stands out to me on the public land side.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 16]

Networking... the real online scouting. Like I mentioned above there’s no sense in zeroing in on an area until you know it’s worth staring at online. I could look at topo maps of Tennessee and pick out what looks like good elk country. So before you begin dreaming big dreams about a spot you better make sure it’s got elk and isn’t overrun with homo sapiens.

Instead of asking all of your questions on open forums try using PMs when you can. Look for those veterans who don’t seem to mind taking time to answer your questions in detail. Read posts and try to get a feel for personalities of generous members. Then reach out to them and see if they can get you started. Maybe they have an old honey hole that they don’t go to anymore for one reason or another. Maybe it’s great hunting but as they got older they found easier places to kill elk. So you might end up in some rugged country but if you’re in decent shape who cares right?

In my opinion game biologists are a crappy resource. They know the stats of units but those guys are never much for hunting. More likely to be vegetarians than elk nuts. A better source would be a taxidermist or game processor. Those guys want you to kill an elk right!

Put on your thinking cap and spend some time digging and eventually you’ll be much further ahead than if you simply look at Fish and Game websites and just pick out units based on your own limited actual experience. Even if you donpick a unit that stands out you still need to know where in that one to start. Every hunting unit has good areas and dead ones. You just might strike gold by looking for first hand knowledge. If not I guess you can always consider purchasing a DIY hunt plan from yours truly. I’ve never had a hunter regret it. Good luck!
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby saddlesore » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 17]

I don't think I have ever used online for scouting.For that matter even maps.I use maps to figure out how to get there or find out where I am at.
I use Google Earth for about the same reason.It gives you a better overall picture than tying to put 3-4 maps together.

Just because it looks like good elk country, (maybe you see escape routes, saddles,north slope,) it doesn't mean much.Elk will usually stay in the same location, unless pushed, for 3-4 days and then move on.Probably not returning to that spot from anywhere from a week to a month or more.So it doesn't do any good to say that looks good and get there a day after the elk have moved.That is why I don't like the 5 day seasons.

Some areas have small resident elk herd that stay right there.I hunt such a spot and once I move thru it,and don't kill an elk there,but bust them they are gone for the season.If someone else goes thru there before I do, I'm pretty much screwed.

Certain areas will attract elk, some won't,but you need to know the area a lot more than one drainage as to what is going on. For certain,elk use the same areas for calving grounds and breeding grounds.So finding those breeding grounds and hunting them in peak rut will usually give better success.Other than that, from year to year, your honey hole might be good and it might not. Figuring out where the elk go to live when pressured by hunters and how many hunters use the area is a lot more valuable than looking at maps .That can only be done by hunting the area for several years or having someone acquainted with it pass along the information. I have found elk in areas where they absolutely shouldn't be, but they are safe. Over two ridges are bunch of hunters trying to find elk where the map says they should be.

It doesn't do much good to look at all that and then arrive at the trail head and find a 100 other hunters there.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Swede » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 18]

saddlesore wrote:Just because it looks like good elk country, (maybe you see escape routes, saddles,north slope,) it doesn't mean much.


Where I have hunted you cannot be certain about a spot based on map and photo work, but you can sure increase your chances over just wandering around. In the area I hunted with RJ last September, the country is almost the opposite with almost everything closed in, but you can pick out spots on Google Earth to check out and improve over just wandering around. I have two areas where I plan to scout in July that I am unfamiliar with. I will not hit a gold mine on some of my GPS coordinates, but I suspect I will do a lot better that just wandering around looking. Of coarse I look for spots where I think elk will be funneled into a small area. I want to see multiple trails coming together and or heavily used elk trails. Springs are good and so are multiple rub trees. I like to see several years of rub trees not just ones of all the same age.
Probably a lot of the difference is expectation and how we are hunting. With tree stand hunting, I don't expect to commonly see elk when I arrive at the location. I expect to wait awhile.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby saddlesore » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 19]

Here is an example. Great looking elk country. You can find intersecting trails, springs, etc. Can be seen on GE and topo maps. Scout it in the summer, early fall and you will find elk.

Image

Go back after the first few gun shots, and you will see zip because they are in the photo below, 3 , miles east on private land . This was part of a herd of about 300.
If a person hasn't talked to locals or hunters that know about it, they get a nice camping trip.

Image
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Swede » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 20]

Saddlesore, you make some good points. There is no use hunting where elk used to be. On-line scouting won't tell you that, and hunting the late season may only show you where they were. Hunting pressure and high country snows are only a couple of factors at work. I deal with heavy cattle grazing in places. Since I hunt the first hunting season, hunting pressure is not a killer early in the season.

I am curious how you would rate the top area you have pictured for an early archery hunt? Could you find some high probability spots, for a tree stand, from your maps and Google Earth?
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 21]

On the flip side I know areas where hunting is slow in archery and then gets better as the season goes on. After the rifle opener it has ups and downs because of local weekend warriors but you can always kill bulls. The last week of the season is fantastic. Why? Migrations from higher country. Only experience enables you to know where elk stage before the final drop to river bottoms and private land.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Swede » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 22]

I don't hunt late rifle season after the heavy snow covers the high country. I have not had a Rainbow Family gathering blanket my area either, but that was fairly close.
All I know is that I have found quite a few of my tree stand locations by pouring over maps and aerial photos. I began with evening and weekend visits to my Forest Service office in the winter, and followed up in the summer with boots on the ground. I have followed the same practice since I have had internet service right here at home.
What is interesting is that Stringunner found almost all of these same places I had stands, on his own using the same technique I outlined in the tree stand book. His findings were so identical that it took Oly and me awhile to understand he was not following us around. Oly and I are absolutely sure Stringunner used the same process honestly, but I know a couple of hunters that think we are naïve. They just don't know Stringunner and his dad.
Writing the book cost me the sole possession of some good tree stand spots, but it gained me a couple of good friends. :D
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby saddlesore » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 23]

Swede wrote:

I am curious how you would rate the top area you have pictured for an early archery hunt? Could you find some high probability spots, for a tree stand, from your maps and Google Earth?
.

Nope, it would be a shot in the dark. This is big country. I have killed elk from the meadow in the first picture, to the furthest mountain you can see, and from the furthest country on the left of the meadow to the furthest you can see on the right.
I did it by spending enough time in each season I hunted to find where the elk were at right then and then go kill one. Believe me, they traveled all over that country and it took a lot of saddle time each season.I killed them on the first day of the season when I happened to stumble into them and and on the last day when I was about to give up.I did kill three elk within 1/4 mile of that meadow. Two bulls were blind luck that I happen to catch each one as they were moving thru,pushed by others.Five minutes each way and I would have never seen them. A third one, a young cow,I actually snuck up to them and shot her in her bed.That was on a Friday after 7 days trying to find them. That herd had moved about five miles from where they were at the previous day

A fellow on here and I are going into that country this coming year and hunt archery for him and ML for me if I am healed up and able. He has hunted it for two years now and had opportunities, but not connected.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Swede » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 24]

I just remember how eerie it was to find Stringunner had come up with so many of our tree stand locations, where we were currently hunting. Oly's friend left his GPS in a friends pickup and we knew he had down-loaded the GPS coordinated, that included our current tree stand locations. He was seen on another camera at one very obscure location about 60 miles from home. All of us were thinking that the friend of a friend had sold Stringunner our GPS spots. The thinking was that Stringunner could not find in two years nearly all of the locations it took me ten years to locate. He was beating me at my own game and I thought I had all of the advantage of living and working there.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby WapitiTalk1 » 02 07, 2018 •  [Post 25]

Locate deep, dark, inaccessible hidey holes. They’ll be there....just up off the creek far enough so it doesn’t screw with their hearing. Ridiculously thick alder and vine maple thickets add sauce to the goose. This is what I’ve found true in big dog country. Yep, you can catch em up higher late evening and early morning but during the day.....they’re oftentimes in those places that don’t cater to easy hunting/packing. They are dumb but not so dumb ;).
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 02 08, 2018 •  [Post 26]

WapitiTalk1 wrote:Locate deep, dark, inaccessible hidey holes. They’ll be there....just up off the creek far enough so it doesn’t screw with their hearing. Ridiculously thick alder and vine maple thickets add sauce to the goose. This is what I’ve found true in big dog country. Yep, you can catch em up higher late evening and early morning but during the day.....they’re oftentimes in those places that don’t cater to easy hunting/packing. They are dumb but not so dumb ;).


I wouldn’t go stomping through anything that thick once I’ve been there previously. I’d try to get on the same elevation and call during archery and in rifle I’d set up somewhere in the direction I expect them to come out of there. Most likely toward water. Busting into stuff that thick is a good elk relocation tactic!
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby elkstalker » 02 09, 2018 •  [Post 27]

I do quite a bit of online scouting every year. One of my favorite things to do is trying new areas, and I like to take the top down approach. Select a unit to look at based on broad scale comments from other hunters, F&G harvest reporting, online forums, etc. Then I look at maps, typically focusing on amount of open roads and trails; I prefer to hunt areas with limited access so that's what I look for. Then I pull out topos, caltopo is a great site for this, and pair them with GE and other imagery to narrow it down to a number of drainage's, or areas 10x10 miles that meet my needs. That's when I really fine tune, looking for potential feeding areas, bedding ground, trails between the two, water, etc. It's amazing what you can find, I've seen herds of elk, even the antlers on a bull. Then I try to get out in the field at least a few times to verify there are elk in the area. This method seems to work well for me....
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby stringunner » 02 09, 2018 •  [Post 28]

Swede wrote: The thinking was that Stringunner could not find in two years nearly all of the locations it took me ten years to locate. He was beating me at my own game and I thought I had all of the advantage of living and working there.



I remember this well. It took quite a bit of convincing to get Oly to believe me. :shock: We had already been hunting the area for several years before switching to stands. That helped. But honestly after I read Swedes book, I found a couple spots on line according to Swedes instruction manual, went and tested the theory with boots on the ground and it worked incredibly well. I spent the next two winters close to 30+ hours week online scouting. I had a job at the time that was slow all winter. In two years I had a list of over 75 spots to check. As Swede says most ended up being his and Oly spots as well. As frustrated as they were I was too. I could t seem to find one stupid water hole that didn’t have a ladder built at the location. Come to find out later, they were all in fact being used by a guy named “Swede”. I still have a list of over 40 spots I may or may not ever get to. Oly believes me now, I decided to start scouting a location north of where we hunt now last year and employed the same techniques, I was able to locate 6 of 8 water holes in a day all of which are prime elk locations. I sent Oly pictures to prove it.

And I gained some spots, have since shared some additional spots with them, we now hunt and camp together and more than that communicate year round about life. Swede and I spent several days last week on the phone as he was providing support and encouragement to my wife and I walking through a difficult situation with one of our kids. More than hunting spots, my family gained some great friends and brothers. It worked out well.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Brendan » 02 10, 2018 •  [Post 29]

I am a big fan of Google Earth, with Caltopo overlays within GE. Allows me to switch back and forth between Satellite, Topo, Fire History, etc all within Google Earth. Then, I can create all my waypoints, tracks, trails, areas using whichever layer is easiest, and then load them right into my Garmin or Gaia on my phone so I have everything in the field with me.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby mandrroofing » 08 21, 2019 •  [Post 30]

Can I get a link to see the latest open and closed/gates roads in Wyoming?

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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Indian Summer » 08 21, 2019 •  [Post 31]

Your best bet there is a Forest Service Travel Map. All roads and gates are color coded to show restrictions and dates of restrictions.
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Re: Online Scouting

Postby mandrroofing » 06 27, 2020 •  [Post 32]

Thank you

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Re: Online Scouting

Postby Lefty » 06 28, 2020 •  [Post 33]

Glad this has gone back to the top.
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