Wednesday, May 02, 2018

A Hawk-Eye View of Your Farms

Example


It's a useful thing to have an aerial map of the farms you work, especially when talking with a farmer about his property or adjoining fields.

Simply go to Google Maps and enter your farm's zip code to get the approximate location and zoom in and out from there.


You can save the shot by right-clicking and you can print them out as well.

Enter any address, and you can see it from the air, and zoom in with some detail.


I use a very low-cost iPhone app called "Pinbox" to drop a pin on settes and other features, which helps locate dens quickly and illuminates underground geology.  I have also used the app to help me figure my way out of the woods and fields if I get lost (some of the farms I hunt are quite big). 



Knowing where water and woods are in relation to field crops, roads, and outbuildings can also give you an idea of where fox and racoon may be bunkered up.

I keep my permissions and aerial maps together, taped up underneath the lid of my veterinary box which is always in the car when I hunt the dogs.

1 comment:

TEC said...

Cellular phone apps have come a long way. I recently installed one similar to your Pinbox, but for Android phones. Its GPS/mapping features have changed my life in the field. Has overlays for public and private land, that provide tax names/addresses to begin a permission search. You can view map in topo or satellite form. Has waypoint pins you can place in advance, or as you move about field. Can ask it to trace your path as you hike. It works as one account on various devices, such that a friend at home can follow progress on a tablet or laptop; for me an excellent safety feature. Since I am often out of cellular coverage, this app allows you to download in advance a 10 x 10 square mile area to you phone, so that it is viewable regardless of signal strength. The basic app itself and good overlay selection costs less than tank of gas per year. Go to a sportsman show, and get big discount for first year. App known as "onX" maps. Uninformative name, yet big results. I have no business/monetary connection with company. My dog and I hike basalt bedrock scabland in search of massive granitic boulders. Little like searching/studying Zebra in the Rocky Mountains, except I find the boulders :-D. I think Terrierman would agree: Don't buy expensive dedicated GPS device when cell phone apps will do the job -- TEC