With 2 young daughters, I now take my personnel safety a lot more serious. I have purchased a Gorilla G20 harness and installed rope and prussic knot tie offs for all my stand locations. My wife bought me a Garmin etrex 20 for Father's day this year. The past 2 weekends, I went out and marked all of my stands and/or climber locations as waypoints. With Garmin Basecamp, I was able to transfer all of the waypoints into Google Earth and then mark neighbors houses, church, and other landmarks my wife could identify. I printed out the final copy and put in on the fridge with a grease board. The plan is, I write down what stand I'm going to and my anticipated return time on the board. If I dont return or call, she knows where to start looking. My wife really liked the whole idea, so I thought I'd share it with everyone else. (the idea, not the map)
Excellent plan. Always good to let someone know where you will be hunting. Nobody likes to think about something happening to them, but that's why they're called 'accidents'. I would rather know that if something happened to me, someone would know where to find me to get me help. Thanks for sharing
I need to do that for my cabin up north. Cell service ends about 20 minutes south and all the hunting I do up there is alone.
I'm in the sticks, but cell service is good here. Both my dad & wife can track my every move through my iPhone Plus they are told where I'm going.
I have cell service at the house, but it's hit or miss at all my stand locations. I definitely cannot count on it as my backup I need help plan.
The wife hunts as well, so she knows where each stand is.. I always send a text if I am in camp and she is at home of what stand I am going to sit and approximate time back. She has all the phone numbers of the family that lives on the property we hunt. She could call them and tell them what stand I was in and they would send out a search party... Your right, it is very comforting knowing that someone knows where you are as well as the comfort of the loved one that she/he is aware where you are as well..
Great ideas. Most of my bow hunting is also alone. One of the properties I hunt is close to a BH.com pro staff member so I have reached out to him as a back-up otherwise my immediate family is 2.5 hours away. Luckily, I have great cell reception where I hunt, but in the case of an accident a cell phone might be completely useless. Thanks for sharing!
Sounds like a lot of thought went into the plan. Thankfully everywhere I have hunted or plan to hunt has at least some cell service. Another option is a device called the inreach by Delorme. It's similar to an EPIRB/ELT/PLB (emergency position indicating radio beacon/emergency location transmitter/personal locating beacon) but allows you to text info via a smartphone using satellites instead of cell towers. Costs about $250, but may be invaluable in the event something extreme happens and you need help now.
This is what I use, my brother also has the iphone, so we set up the track my friends app, plus my wife has my log in info to track it from her computer or ipad. the reception is hit or miss but it tracks it good enough they could find me. my brother calls me at sun down every day he knows im hunting to make sure im on my way out, if i dont answer or call back with in 30 mins, he starts tracking.
