Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Whats the point of a compass

If a map is of evenly thick and virtually flat terrain with no lakes, streams, trails, roads or any other feature shown on the map that can be identified on the ground, then a map would be of little or no use to me. I've never used a map that did not have something of interest to me that l could ID when standing on it.

So yes, a map and compass can be useful in totally thick flat country and may be even more critical than in places where you can see some distance, depending on what you are doing. I usually do my map work at home, jot down heading(s) and unless I change plans while out there, seldom pull out the map while walking or hunting. When you need it you need it, however! So take it with you! I fold it to show the part of the map I'm on and put it in a Ziploc.

The single most critical factor is to know where you are on the map at your starting point. That is true whether thick and flat or on a mountain peak. I would assume that there is some kind of road/trail/stream/building/pond etc. at your starting point. I'd look at the map, pick out a place that you can identify when standing on it, and use that as a starting point. Done that many times. Showing exactly where I am may be the single most valuable info a GPS gives us.

Then you can travel a compass heading from that point, even if you can't see ten feet in front of you. The thicker it is the more carefully you need to navigate, and it can get tedious.

I have found it easier to walk a compass heading in super thick brush and timber with two people. The man with the compass sends the other man out ahead as far as he can go and still see some tiny bit of him, and has him move right or left till he is lined up on the direction you want to walk. Then he stays there till the compass man gets to him and they repeat.

Long before GPS my main hunting partner and I navigated to remote moose swamps found on a map, on a vast plateau of thick brushy timber, with only one trace of an old road or trail out on the edge somewhere. There is no sign of the swamps anywhere near the road. Again, it is absolutely critical to know your starting point precisely, and the thicker it is the more important to never wander off of a heading etc. Never lose track of exactly where you are or at least the heading to get back, until you are standing on another positively identified landmark.

My best moose spot is 67 degrees magnetic from a spot on a road that is a brushy tunnel miles long with no view nor breaks of any kind. The starting point is .6 miles from an ancient crossroads of now abandoned roads. 75 yards into the thick timber my cut trail starts. I never leave the road at exactly the same place and avoid making any tracks or sign of where I left the road. I never park at the same place nor close, except a few times when loading chunks of dissected moose a moose as quickly as possible.

Since getting my GPS I have lifted Google Earth coordinates of places I want to hunt that are way off trail, entered them in my GPS and used a compass to walk to them. The GPS is easier overall, but it can be done with map and compass, and I find it easier to actually walk a heading by compass rather than by GPS.

For me the point of a compass is to make me believe my lyin' GPS.

Being "oriented" is a quickly disappearing art. If you don't believe me, take the phone away from a teenager and ask them to find an address.

I never go into the woods without a GPS, compass and relevant topo map. And, my GPS is set to the same datum as my topo (usually USGS quad). Once, I had to get to a supervisor in the GIS dept of a state government for someone to tell me what datum their online Dept of F&G maps used--like most phones, it ended up being WGS84. But, if you have navigated before with the wrong datum, you'll generally get religion quickly. Especially if it's night or with inclement weather. So, if you're picking a meetup point on a USGS map (e.g., NAD27 datum) and the other person is using a phone, there's likely already a built-in error. I see this all the time with everyone using onX cell phone maps.

I walk in the woods a lot after simply setting a bearing off my map. I periodically check my bearing and use handrails like roads or ridgelines in addition to "aiming off" so that I hit a known, well-established landmark (usually a road) then make my left or right turn. Allows me to see tons of new country while being low stress and idiot-proof.

Finally, if you're introducing a young person to the outdoors, teach them (or go to one of the many outstanding navigational courses out there, like at REI) how to navigate with a map & compass; both their enjoyment and self-reliance will go up commensurately.

I never woulda thought the cell phone could mess up my compass. But I did what Rock Chuck described, and found my little compass disoriented.

Go 50 miles offshore in a boat depending on your GPS and no compass and you won't ask that question

I hunt a long valley up under the rim with a road and river below..Hard to get Lost lost, when you can always walk downhill for a mile or two and cut the road. Finding the quickest way back to your camp or downed elk is different. Early GPS's were a joke in the trees or during a snowstorm. Now they work pretty reliably. The nice thing about GPS is that you can follow the easiest terrain path, rather than being locked in to a bearing that might take you through blowdown, cliffs, swamps, etc. I have been disoriented in snowstorms and it is not fun. I vote for GPS now. Lithium ion batteries and dont turn it on until you need it. I mark my camp location when I start out, turn it off until I want to mark something else (a downed animal or a peculiar terrain location), then turn it off again. If I am unsure of the way home, I turn it on, take a fix, then turn it off again. Of course now, after hunting the same area for 10 years, I have most all the relevant waypoints stored and dont need to mark much except my animal. I also dont get disoriented much anymore, but there is always the next snowstorm lurking. Be aware.

I find that the easiest place to get screwed up isn't the mountains. It's the flat desert. You can see for miles but there's nothing to see. No landmarks at all. On a cloudy day, you can't tell what direction is which and it's easy to get messed up.

Agreed. Even a compass can be useless there. I’ve wandered off a few times along the Peshekee Grade and in the Huron Mountains and have my compass rendered useless thanks to ore deposits. A little concerning to see the needle spin in circles and never settle.

GPS/OnX are the “go-tos” these days - and with good reason. But one should always carry a compass and know how to use it.

1)Technology can fail.

2)Covenience. Not every application requires a GPS and the time it takes to use it. For example, when I am woodcock hunting I keep a compass pinned to my bird vest. All I need to know is the direction/course I need to follow going in or out so that I stay oriented. Quick glances at the compass do the trick with no muss or fuss. Same principle in the deer woods. Much handier than a GPS/OnX.

I used to work for the USFS surveying old growth timber, regen surveys, and EIS work. This was back in the day when GPS was just coming available but we used maps, paper, compass, and aerial photos.

It's amazing that one was able to find the corners or edges of timber stands that needed to be surveyed and one could navigate just fine once an corner or edge of an particular stand was identified and you could then draw an map with transect lines and plots. Aerial photos and training to interpret helped to some degree as well, and the old chain or pace pole helped keep accurate counts for distances and even helped keep one more inline with less deviation in the heavy thick stuff.

There were some forests I worked on that were both current and former mining districts. At times there were large mineralized outcrops that defeated my compass, but that's not too much of a worry if you've draw out transect lines and use the terrain and pace pole to shoot a rough sighting and

ONLY useful tool in a whiteout.

Be sure you KNOW the "declination" for YOUR area. The declination CHANGES from year-to-year. Do not count on the declination amount printed on your map(s). Look it up before you head out.