HUNT STAND APP REVIEW

For the past few decades, a favorite activity of mine after a day afield has been coming home to kick back with a couple beers and a tattered old spiral notebook to journal my day in the great outdoors. When I was younger this activity would include sketching crude maps and marking various game sightings hoping some new revelation about where the deer were hiding would reveal itself. Nowadays I pull from my head visions, senses and emotions I felt while perched 20ft up or sitting in a ground blind waiting for my quarry. I enjoy skimming through these various ramblings throughout the year when I cant be out and about. This year required a different approach. One that until now, I had been reluctant to try.

Previously I had hunted the same two pieces of property for 38 years. The landowner passed away and the heirs to my hunting paradise had no interest in letting anyone continue to hunt the property. Luckily, I stumbled onto a new piece of property of about 100 acres that a few friends and myself were lucky enough to obtain with a five-year lease. The six of us hunted the property the first year seeing plenty of deer but only one of us was lucky enough to harvest a deer. Knowing that this property held a good population of deer and that I didn’t have another 38 years to figure out what the deer were doing, I decided to take the plunge and try a hunting app on my phone with the hope of increasing my odds for success. For my purposes I chose the free app Hunt Stand for my I Phone and set out one day in late February to document the meanderings of the resident deer population. While the snow fell the night before, I spent some time with the app to set up the property boundaries, parking areas and some stand locations from memory. The app is impressive with icons for pinning just about anything you could possibly encounter while out hunting. I felt like it was opening day eve the night before I went out mapping the property. Sleep was hard to come by and I couldn’t wait to get out and get all the trails, sightings and sign pinned to the overhead satellite view of our property. I spent the better part of the following day walking around marking stand sights, trails, rubs, scrapes, feeding areas, bedding areas; anything I stumbled on relating to deer went on the map. The fresh layer of snow revealed a ton of new information I hadn’t picked up in several earlier scouting trips and now it was all on the map. As you may have figured that map of my 100 acres got a bit crowded with all those icons but by zooming out a bit and using the apps convenient layering features I could customize the view to see only what I wanted. If I just wanted to see stand locations and sign it was as simple as checking the corresponding layering boxes and Boom – the patterns began to emerge. I was kicking myself for waiting so long to embrace this technology. I felt like a kid discovering a new video game. I couldn’t wait to get home and view the customized map on a large screen laptop. Having the ability to overlay deer sign and sightings on an overhead satellite photo of your hunting property is quite revealing! Within ten minutes of analyzing the map, I knew I needed to move the locations of my tree stands. The patterns and funnels jumped off the screen! Next season would not get here fast enough.

Hunt Stand has handy land management tools as well.  The app allows a limited number of land parcel views that give boundaries, size and ownership information of bordering properties or any other property you may be interested in. I am the person in charge of organizing the guys hunting this property and using the Hunt Stand App I was able to get the guys signed up in the App and send them all custom maps showing boundaries and stand locations making management of the property a breeze. Another helpful feature in the app is the ability to easily measure the distance between any two points on the map. We have a safety rule that no stand or blind can be within 100 yards of another and checking distance between stands is easy and accurate. Yet another fantastic management tool Hunt Stand provides is real-time tracking of any of the guys that are signed into the App. If signed in, their current locations show on the map. This feature makes sure that no one gets disturbed and if someone needs help recovering a deer or gets injured we all know where to find each other. Hunt Stand also has separate tabs to keep track of the Weather, Moon Phases and even shows your how your scent will disperse downwind from your chosen hunting location at a given time now or a few days from now!

Even if you have been hunting the same property for several years I recommend downloading this FREE user-friendly App on your phone and computer.  Have fun navigating and using the tools and features too numerous to mention here and rediscover your favorite hunting areas. Chances are you will improve your odds, see more game and have the ability to review and “visit” your favorite spots year-round from wherever you want!

CREW RULES!

For twelve years our extracurricular lives were filled with Basketball & Softball. Most nights and weekends throughout the year would find us squeaking around on a shiny hardwood basketball court or enjoying that sweet metallic pinging sound of an aluminum bat connecting with a windmill pitched neon green softball. Our daughter loved these two sports and we loved coaching and watching her play.

Then came High School and the competition ramped up. Basketball was the first casualty with statewide recruited talent replacing Rec League standouts. Softball followed in the Spring. Our chosen school only fielded a Varsity team with no Freshman making the cut. Luckily, most kids are resilient, and our daughter was no exception. After a few tears and angry rants, the Crew coach spotted our 5’- 10” 170pound Freshman and convinced her to give Crew a try. Time to Google Crew and see what we were about to get ourselves into.

My first exposure to Crew happened one summer afternoon as I passed by a TV showing a Crew race during the Summer Olympics. Those teams were speeding along the surface synchronized and smooth with no sails and no motors! Just muscle and grit. Scrolling along online I discovered that our daughter and 7 teammates would now be spending a few hours after school each day in a 60 foot long, 23-inch-wide fiberglass boat. When fully loaded the boat cruised along less than a foot above a calm surface. The more I read the more I learned to appreciate the depth of our daughter’s courage and determination to compete in a team sport at the high school level. Races are 1500 meters long not counting the row out to the course and the row back. Also, add in carrying a 300-pound $50,000 boat to and from the launch. Respectable times for her gender and experience level was around 7 to 8 minutes depending on a tailwind or headwind. The teamwork and coordination required just to keep these boats upright tested the patience of our seasoned coach who managed to mold these young ladies with no experience into a formidable squad. We took home first place in our last Regatta of the spring season.

Besides the joy and excitement of watching our daughter compete we quickly discovered a lively bunch of parents fully engrossed in a fun tailgating like atmosphere during each Regatta. Setting up our team tents and concessions required a coordinated effort with the dads lugging in and erecting the set up as the Mom’s swooped in and made everything look clean, organized and appetizing. We dads kept the grill hot and the moms moved the hungry rowers in and out like well-trained military unit. When our rowers wandered back from their heat races with red faces and healthy appetites our spread of food and drink never disappointed. Crew had now become our favorite team sport. Outdoors lakeside or riverside cheering on our girls with rowdy parents and cowbells had us rolling out of bed at 4:30 am on Regatta mornings with smiles on our faces. Even when the weather didn’t fully cooperate we didn’t mind because we were toasty and dry on shore while our badass daughters were out on the water braving the elements in spandex uniforms pulling their oars for bragging rights over the other local teams.

Now that we have a season under our belts the biggest benefit I have seen with becoming part of this sport is watching the effect it has had on my daughter and her teammates both mentally and physically. Once you survive a few practices out on the water in the rain with temps in the 40’s the stuff you used to whine about (Having to wear a heavy coat, getting your hair wet ETC) all seem pretty lame. Weather extremes and physical exertion were now accepted and no longer considered game changers or spoilers. Our daughters’ confidence level rose, and her body toned up with an increase in energy level as well. Even her academic performance and social life improved with the increased confidence. Overall the outdoors was a much less intimidating place to be for her and we all began enjoying more spare time outside. Walking, hiking and bicycling replaced social media surfing and TV watching. We still enjoy taking in an occasional basketball or softball but for now, outside is the place to be for us.

TOO MUCH TECHNOLOGY?

This opinion piece will probably irk a few folks but I am concerned about the direction in which the hunting industry is headed! Advances in technology are normally awesome and improve our lives but mixing technology and hunting is not my idea of improving the sport. All of this new technology and gadgetry are producing lazy hunters and spoiling the purity and main focus of hunting. That main focus is getting outside and enjoying nature and all of her surprises. Sure we want to put meat on the table but let’s face it if you can afford to get into hunting these days you are not going to starve if you miss an opportunity or two to harvest a game animal. On the eve of any hunting trip I plan, I can hardly sleep in anticipation of what awaits the next morning. I’m not browsing through my latest trail cam pics to see what would be the best time to get in the stand or wondering about if I set the timer right on the feeder. I’m not checking to see if the Ozonics is charged to mask my sent or gathering all of my camera equipment in preparation to film my hunt. To me, all of that just defeats the purpose. How can you go out and truly enjoy the experience if you have to worry about all that? I want to be pleasantly surprised by what I see not constantly checking my phone for the time or looking for that alert from my trail cam that a deer is heading my way! We already have enough of an advantage with camo clothing and advanced weaponry. This year I plan to downsize and streamline my approach to hunting. Hell, I might even ditch the backpack and actually use some of the 8000 pockets on my fancy hunting pants!

I as I often do each summer, sitting on a beach with a cold one, I review last hunting season. This season I couldn’t help but laugh at some of the ridiculous events. My poor dad had a great opportunity to harvest a beautiful 8 point buck during archery season but when shifting his foot in preparation to draw his bow, his boot collided with his backpack full of “just in case gear” and sent it hurtling out of his tree stand for a noisy meeting with the ground. The buck ran off about 20yards out of range and gave dad that “you dumb ass look” and casually walked off.  When we met up back at the truck for lunch, no more than 300yards away from both of our stands, we emptied our packs and took inventory.

Multi-tool, buck knife, roll of toilet paper, rangefinder, rattling horns, grunt call, binoculars, flashlight, batteries, bottle of cover sent, drag rope and harness, butt out, gloves, apple, granola bar, crackers, slim jim, Bottle of water, bullets from gun season last year, face mask, mosquito repellent, camo duck tape, kitchen sink (just kidding about the sink but you get the idea). Each one of our packs contained these items and remember the location of our truck. Crazy. Aaaaaand most of the time we have access to an ATV to help remove any deer we are lucky enough to harvest.

I know there are a lot of hard-working folks out there that make their living documenting, filming and presenting their hunts on TV and numerous guide services that depend on this technology. I watch some of those shows and I am currently looking into using an outfitter for an elk hunt. I have even softened a little and put a hunting app on my phone mostly as a land management tool. I understand the business and don’t fault them for using these innovations for greater success, but for me, less is more. I go afield expecting to “fail” but I am not out there for success. I am out there for the experience of being in the animals’ kingdom and trying to put myself in the right place at the right time using just my god given senses and ability to read the natural sign, terrain, food sources, and weather. The thrill of the chase and the escape from the rat race is what keeps me coming out. That is what I want to pass on to my offspring. I don’t want to pick out a buck from a trail camera, name it, log the times and places where it comes and goes then set up a heated blind with a scent killing machine and tell my child “ok you have 1 hour to play on your cell phone until the buck shows up”. A small bit of exaggeration there but I have watched that scenario play out too many times on TV. We must draw the line somewhere and get back to basics to promote the pure joy of spending time in the outdoors. The memories we make sharing time outdoors with our families, friends and ourselves are the experiences that stay fresh in our mind for a lifetime.