Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Using a GPS while on Safari

Just curious how many of you have used a GPS while in Africa? I have a Garmin Montana and the download available through Garmin is $175! I did find a tracks4africa SD card, but am unsure of the quality. It's $90.

I just thought it would be neat to be able to reminisce about where we were and where we got what.

Thoughts?

I used one, just for situational areness in case I had to ever get back to camp on my own for some reason and I have all the L/L where I killed my trophies. What is the SD Card for?

We took a Garmin 60CSx to Namibia this year with a map from T4A. It was a download rather than the card and was less than $90...under $20 IIRC.

As a matter of fact, the PH had a Montana and used a T4A map on it. Quality is great.

I used the 60CSx to mark a leopard kill, baits, some rock paintings I found, lodges and farms we visited, etc. Fun toy!

I take and use one every year in Namibia and RSA - Garmin Oregon 550. We usually rent a car and do some sightseeing for a week or more before or after we hunt. The Garmin maps for RSA cover the streets for RSA and Namibia. No topo data but not really needed.

For hunting I carry it all the time with just the PH's base camp/house loaded in and keep it turned off. I have loaded prominent features and their names like wells/waterholes, permanent blinds, etc. The only time I plan to turn it on hunting is in case of an emergency and need to call in our current position Lat/Long or bearing/range from one of the points or get back "home". Basically, just adding a level of safety/security.

I always take mine, I like to plot the camps, cliffs and kill sites so that I can google earth them when I get home. Just to show friends/family where I was.

Mine goes with me whenever I hunt, particularly if I am far from familiar areas. I find it reassuring to know where the truck is if I have to find it myself, where animals are seen and I like to know how far I walk each day. I find that if I just estimate distance I can be significantly off in either direction.

I took my Garmin eTrex to Zimbabwe with me and used it to plot the campsite and animal locations. It's pretty cool to look back on those locations using Google Earth now. I only regret that I didn't take the GPS to Namibia when I went there on my first trip to Africa...

Did you have any special maps loaded or where you able to just use your GPS as it came out of the box?

Thanks.

I took my Garmin ETREX Venture HC to Limpopo, South Africa, in
May. Marked the lodge and one spot where we left the truck. Did
not remember to mark all the others that wanted to...was in too
much of a hurry when we left the truck. There were a few times that I really regretted not doing so as I was really turned around
and would have had a looonnnggg walk back to somewhere if I had had to do so. Most stalks I knew where the truck was and it was not an issue...but....on the others.....well.
Next trip, it will be marked before the rifle is loaded!
It worked just fine out of the box.
In fact, it is 8,317 miles from my front door to his! Or so it tells me!

Have the same Garmin model and have used it for the same purposes as the gentleman above did. Very handy and useful. Also cuts down on the BS where the client tells the PH "we must've done 20 miles on foot today...."

Pieter has several photos of me taking GPS readings. I would mark where I when I shot and where the animal was as well as any interesting spot. I did not have an Africa map installed, but I downloaded the SD card when I got home and looked up the coordinates on Google maps.

That is what intend to do. Thanks!

22 days and counting....

I'm envious. It's 279 for me. Not that I'm counting.

My wife gave me a new camera with a built in GPS. It's a Nikon AW100. Every photo I took has the coordinates listed in the file info when you download the photos to a computer. I have all of my animals that I killed in Namibia the last two weeks precisely located and marked on Google Earth.

One shortcoming with this is posting photo's of success from your home, or honey hole whether hunting or fishing. That data is in the file. When you post a photo on the web, that info will follow.

Be carful about where your best spots are and posting those photo's unless you're okay with everyone interested knowing the exact co-ordinates of your best locations.