Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Is a GPS needed

Will be elk hunting with a guide in Wyoming starting on the 16th of this month. I don't have a GPS at this time and I was wondering if I really need to have one since I will be with a guide. I still have time to pick one up but $400 to $500 is kinda steep for what maybe a one time use. Advise please.

You can get a good one for around a hundred bucks (Garmin Etrex) that will allow you to pinpoint your camp, save way points and tell you your location and altitude. If you are with a guide, the only use you would really need one for is to find your way back to camp in unfamiliar terrain if somehow you and your guide became separated.

That said, I have had a GPS unit for almost ten years and have never actually needed it for anything, and I hunt both public and private land without a guide. It has been more of a convenience than anything else. The only time that it was really useful was to provide the Colorado Division of Wildlife GPS coordinates for the sites of my elk kills during the two years that they were testing for CWD in elk in the unit in which I was hunting.

I wouldn't buy one for a one time use on a guided hunt. Just get a compass and take a reading each time you leave the truck. That will be plenty good to get you out of an area in an emergency.

ps- a hunter should always have a compass anyway, GPS are obviously electronic....

They do not substitute for a map and compass and skills to use them but I have carried one for 10+ years and wouldn't be caught dead (pun intended) without both. As MH said an E-trex is fairly cheap. I have also found them very handy when going to any happening (the Stockshow in Denver, state fair etc) where there are 40 acres of parking and you want to find your car among the thousands at midnight when it's time to go home. Cheap safety investment to add to your pack.

You need to have a map and compass with you. Ideally you want to know where on the map you are at all times.

If you can pick up even a cheap used GPS and learn how to plot your location from the GPS to a map your pretty much set.

My first GPS was a Garmin Gecko..You can buy them on Ebay for around $40-$50.

If you know a few folks with a cool mapping GPS, at least one of them probably still has his old Basic unit in the bottom of his hunting gear tote, maybe he will loan it to you for a few weeks.

I have used USGS maps and compass for fifty years and I'm really confident with that system. But you know you can't always see the terrain to orient yourself and sometimes even when you can see the terrain it's hard to get your bearings. Several years ago I got a Garmin etrex GPS and used it on an Alaska hunt. There were four of us (all experienced outdoorsmen) and we would walk out of the river bottom into the tundra and hunt separately. We would eventually meet up and ask each other to point towards camp. We could see the river, an obvious green path snaking it's way through the tundra, and we knew that our camp was somewhere on the edge of that river but each of us pointed in a different direction and none of us were right. Now whenever I hunt in unfamiliar territory, I take my simple little GPS and mark my camp as a way point so I can always find my way back to camp in the dark, or fog, or heavy tree cover.

BTW, I haven't abandoned the USGS maps and compass. A GPS is not a substitute for knowing how to use a map and compass, it's an augmentation.

KC

A simple $100 GPS is such a useful navigation tool that I simply don't see not knowing about their capabilities and use. For that reason alone, I would acquire one and bring it along. As others have pointed out, they are electronic devices, these days very reliable ones, not really much different than a compass in terms of loss or destruction. They do require maintenance however (batteries) and they should never substitute for hard maps and good sense.

The Garmin GPS 72 has been replaced by a newer version, the GPS72H, which has a suggested retail of $149, so you could find it for less. The older 72 is still around and can be gotten for under $100. They are basic units in terms of maps and color; they have neither. But both are waterproof and float if dropped in water. They are bigger than the eTrex line, but come with screens that are easier for aging eyes to deal with. They run for 16-18 hours on two AA batteries so you can keep them going if you want to record your track. I use them a lot, almost never go anywhere in the boat without one of them. I have ruined many GPS units over the years, usually due to water infiltration after too many seasons of banging around. I have used the Garmin 72s - I have a couple- for over ten years, and haven't managed to get them to leak or fail yet. Learn to use one and you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner. They are great tools, and much more useful than a cell phone.

I use a Garmin 60csx. I love it.

My most common use for a GPS is elk hunting. Elk will start lining out in some unpredictable direction and since they travel slow when not spooked, you can actually get on their trail and catch up to them. But, you might have to walk a couple miles in some unknown direction, through unfamiliar terrain. I do my best not to "need" the GPS, but it's sure a comfort to have it as back up!

Since you'll be with a guide, you likely won't need one. But, if you can afford the ETrex, get it.

And a word on batteries: All my battery-powered items (Motorola radios, flashlight, headlamp, GPS, camera) run on AA batteries so I can use my spares in any item and also swap batteries if it ever came to that.

Unless you know your guide well and will never leave his side I'd have maps, compass and gps. Seriously, all you really need a gps for is to get a location. I bet you can grab a magellan 315 or similar for under $25 on your local craigslist. Under $100 can get you a Magellan Meridian series and you can get a garmin 60 series from ebay for less than $300 which is as good as it gets. I just looked and there is a garmin 60cs on my Seattle CL for $100!
I used an old Magellan Tracker unit for a bunch of years that I picked up for $1.50 at a thrift store.
My other advice is that if you are ever confused about where you are, believe the GPS first!

Here's my elk hunting buddy sorting out where we are after loosing faith in his old Garmin... Map and compass came to the rescue. I still don't own one, he has a new one that he says is the bees knees. Hope to use it next fall with him

Not knowing the guide, where you'll hunt, and how remote the area is, it's hard to say. If there's a chance you and the guide will separate, I'd get one, one of the $100 models will do fine.

The main thing is, learn how to use it well before you go, and don't forget the map & compass.

"learn how to use it well before you go, and don't forget the map & compass"

Sage advice.

Doubt you'll need one.

That said a gps is a great thing to have but if you don't know how to use it you're wasting hunting time and money.

Murphies Law clearly states that, "if it uses batteries, the batteries will be dead when you really need it." That means pay attention to where you are and have a map and compass that you know how to use.

I've been turned around more than once and am a firm believer in a GPS. I slug camp and the date time of my truck/quad. I slug my elk kills for the extra pack trips out. Then I try not to use it unless I need to. If you're watching your electronics you're not watching for elk.

+1 - There were several GPS units in our camp last year. Only one was fully loaded, played with, and go to go on opening morning. (and I still have a compass and map in my pack...)

Measured through all of civilization, man has had GPS technology for about a nano-second equivalent. Likely one can get by without it. Nice to have, yes. But not required unless one is out in wilderness setting in the cold and dark or navigating the oceans

I've had my head buried into snow covered elk tracks for way to many miles. Killed a few nice ones that way, consentrating more on elk than were I'm at. Of course I made it out but a working gps would have been really nice.

Been a little worried more than once....

Through that window, one might also take comfort in the fact that heated, insulated homes have only been with us for a few nanoseconds more, and we, as a species anyway, managed before that happened, so being 'lost' should be little more than a bit uncomfortable.

Roger that.

You should really be asking your guide.
Some guides will allow you roam around on your own but I don't know why you would want to if you are paying for their services.
Most likely he will want you to be concentrating on glassing and observing rather than navigating.

I have found my way back to spike camp in complete darkness many times using only the GPS. I also carry a map but once you find yourself in darkness, wind, rain, you'll find the map to be of greatly diminished value.

Before the GPS was readilly available I had collected several hundred topo maps and used to use them exclusively. I have 2 apple crates full of them. These days I'll take my GPS first, my backup GPS second, and also throw in a map.

The Bushnell Back Track is the most basic and easiest to use GPS out there. Mark your horses, truck, quads, camp etc. & it will get you back there. Don't like complicated devises.