Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire GPS - 62S or larger screen Oregon/Montana

I want a gps to use to mark stand locations and other hunting tidbits (sign, food, etc) and then be able to look at all that stuff later on computer.

The 62x units appear to be the gold standard for signal and battery life, but the Oregon/Montana models have the bigger screens and seem to be just as rock solid, if a little more battery hungry.

Anybody have any first hand experience with the two? If you have one, which model would you buy to replace it if you had to?

Any other questions/comments? I plan on getting the huntgps private property chip.

i don't have either but i do have an older magellan. if you haven't used a gps in the woods before i will give you one piece of advice. don't rely on it exclusively to get from point A-B. might sound obvious but i had a tendency to use mine like a pointer in unfamiliar territory. i'd set a Goto on a waypoint and let the thing just guide me. it was very useful for pre-dawn navigation. however, i found that when i did that, it turned off my natural sense of direction. i lost my gps one time in an extremely dense fog, before daylight, in an unfamiliar area while navigating like that. i waited until daylight, which didn't help much, and heard a cow mooing way off in the distance and i knew there was only one farm in the area and homed in on that until i got down off the mountain and out of the fog. it was kind of unsettling.

Oddly, my newer Garmin GPS/radio/camera doesn't seem to be very accurate. My old original Garmin was slow to acquire signal, but was accurate within just a few feet usually. This one? Forget it. Not to mention it quit on me and was replaced under warranty with one that had apparently been in Taiwan as it had all the maps from there in it. Mine probably got repaired and sent to who knows where. Lost all my waypoints too.
Overall, I like the unit, and especially like the land ownership chip. Trying to look at maps on that little screen sucks though. I use the camera as much as anything.

GPS or Getting People Stuck, is a great innovation. My cousin is a gadget freak, has to have the latest GPS, smart phone and other doodads immediately. He calls from Oregon needing directions here and there, I give him the directions. He relies on the GPS because he doesn't have a map, he either gets lost or takes a long way around because the GPS is dumber than the silicon it's made from. If California wasn't in the way going south he'd probably miss it and wind up in Mexico, or worse, Nevada. I have given him the quick route to my house several times, leaving out the S.F. Bay Bridge, for I-680 and the San Mateo Bridge. He has hit every alternative route, including one through Oakland that only Kit Carson could find in a drunken stupor that the GPS found in 3 milliseconds.

Called the swimming pool supply house last week for a delivery of chlorine, I was too busy to drive down at at the time. Phone rings, it's Manuel asking how to find our house, his GPS doesn't know where our street is located. I give Manuel the directions. He arrives with cases of liquid chlorine.

So, bottom line, learn to read maps. Keep maps on hand. USGS still has the quadrangles with coordinates in the margins, AAA still sells really accurate maps. Don't get lost and freeze to death on some Oregon road to nowhere, or find yourself lost in Montana, or stuck in Oakland, California during rutting season.

Wrangler John, we are talking 2 different types of GPS. Used right they are a great tool that will do things not possible with maps. We don't drive around in cars with wooden wheels anymore either.


FWIW I used to own the Oregon, left it on the roof of my Jeep a few months ago, drove off and lost it. I replaced it with the 64S and am glad I did.

The screen is a little smaller, but not enough to matter. At my age I need reading glasses to see either. I like using the buttons better than the touch screen and the external antenna picks up signals much easier than the built in antenna on the Oregon. Mine works great even in the thick canopy and steep mountains here in North GA.

The 62S is still a good unit, but the 64 is a slightly newer version and I think it picks up Russian satellites as well as USA satellites. That helps with accuracy. I don't think the Oregon or the 62S does. Could be wrong about that.

A lot comes down to price, and how much you want to pay. Two years ago I got my Oregon at a lot cheaper price than the 62S. When I went back to replace my lost Oregon, the price difference wasn't that much.

I have the Montana 650t with the topo maps. Compared to my old one, it works much better, boots faster, and has a large battery for good life - plus it can use AA batteries as well as its own rechargeable LI-ion.

They have a lot of features. You will have to do some research to download data to your computer, it's not obvious how to do it, in Garmin's instructions.

I always have a backup to the GPS, though - maps, etc.

Thanks for the input guys.

Sounds like the new 64 is probably the model I'm looking for.

i have the 62s for hunting use. Suits me well and you can search the net and finds deals on it solo or in a package with extras.

I like that I can put google earth maps on it.

I'm sure the new touch screen models are the bees knees but the 62s is simple enough to use.

I run the Oregon 450 and love it. I also install the HuntingGPS maps for the states I hunt in.....worth the money!

LOVE my 62...love it. Totally dependable, any time anywhere. Got me out of a supreme jam one time at 2AM in the middle of east Egypt while elk hunting and trying to find my way back after a long hunt far from camp.

I've had the 62 and currently have the Montana. My dad has the Oregon. The 62 is a great GPS but after having the Montana, I wouldn't go back to one with buttons, the touch screen is great. The Montana is a fair amount larger than the Oregon and takes 3 AA's (it comes with a rechargeable battery). The Oregon takes 2 AA's. If you ran AA's you'd definitely want the lithiums. If you want the larger screen and don't mind the extra bulk, the Montana's the way. If you want a smaller, but just as good, get the Oregon.