I use Google Earth. If you have not seen it you need to go to it and down load it...it is free and it is scary, but you can get an excellent idea of your property or any location in the world and check it out. SB
Pretty Cool, but check out google earth you can see shadows on the ground...and my lil blue boat infront of my cabin...
Unfortunately for me I live in a small enough town that when I put my location into google earth my hunting area just appears as a blur. Same with my house as I only hunt about a 1/2 mile from where I live.
I've noticed that some areas have not been updated....guess I'm lucky the maps around Lake Wateree are very clear...you can see a boat going under Taylor Creek Bridge... SB
If you look at the tools across the top of the page you can click the second to last on the right and it allows you to choose between terrain mapa and Sat view.... I use both....I'm betting if you played with it long enough we could figure out how to put the terrain features over the sat. pict...it has more toys on it then I can use... SB
I love G. Earth. Using it in conjunction with my GPS is fantastic! I can load all my stand locations into it. However, like some have said, it may not be useful for all areas. Our place here in Ely is crystal clear, but our property in central WI isn't. I'm not quite sure why not, because the aerial photos for most places are the same on both Mapquest and G. E., but for some reason G. E. doesn't have the high res. photos in that area. It's still a great tool though!
I guess I would have to say that if the sat. pict is high quality and up to date.... I'd have to say yes, I prefer the sat pict. If it is not high quality or up to date no, I would prefer the topo. I don't want to sound like an ahole, but I know how to use a topo... I was a Medevac Helicopter Pilot for the US Army and am intimately familiar with topos....but I have spent enough time in my whirly bird flying nap of the earth, that if the Sat image is good, I can tell you pretty closely what the terrain is based on the vegatation.....I prefer to be able to see what is hardwoods/pine/clearcut thicket.....I can do that w/ Google earth. I can't do that w/ a topo..... SB thats all I'm sayin, and I align my broadheads w/ the fletching.
I like to hunt hardwood bottoms and edges.....I can see those quite clearly with the sat....topos I have to look at and study...sats I can tell instantly see that terrain is... I see a hardwood bottom leading into a thicket/bedding area..I'm on to something...you find open hardwoods bordered by thick pines...you will find a deer trail right on the edge of the pine and the hardwoods....you go back into the pines 5-10 yards and you wioll find another deer trail /a buck trail.....I can see these things w/ the sat... SB
I'll take topo's any day. I use the topo's to decide where I am going to go and scout and when I get there I mark any and all sign, notice oak stands(and also whether they are red, white, other), any other possible food sources, water sources (you can't see whether a creek is running with sat pics),possible stand sites and mark all of the things in my gps. When I get home I put them into my topo mapping software. Seeing the deer sign laid out on the topo maps gives a great idea about likely patterns, especially rub lines and deer trails. I don't use aerial/sat pics.
For my property, a topo map is just about pointless. The area circled is red is my "honey hole" property and the area circled in green is my personal property. I may be seeing this area wrong on this topo map and I may not be reading into it enough, but I know where the deer bed, feed, and travel and they don't match up with any terrain features.
My art work isn't great, but I have shaded in the major bedding areas and their travel routes to their feeding areas. They don't really follow any terrain features, it is more like they are walking the shortest path. On my personal property (green) the bedding area is a overgrown fence row that is incredibly thick. It reminds me of what the scrub brush in Texas looks like. It is almost entirely surrounded in corn field as seen on the first topo. I don't archery hunt this property much as when the crops are in the deer are either in the thick bedding area or the corn and their is no way of setting up between them. On my "honey hole" property (red), the bedding areas are thick deadfalls from when the property was timbered. The deer feed to the cornfield and clover/alfalfa fields towards the northeast and there is a small clover field as the south western part of the property that the deer feed in.
For more perspective, here are two aerial photos of the property. The first one is zoomed in a bit more than the second.
There are some areas where topo maps are useless and some areas where they are the only way to go. Some of the public land I hunt in MS Delta will be over 10,000 acres where the elevation never changes more than a few feet. A topo doesn't tell you much in that place. But a satelite image will show you the clear cuts, flooded timber, grass fields, etc. They each have their place.
BM, When I post from work I can't see the picts....but I glanced at the picts last night..... But from what I looked at in your "honey hole the deer were following a sort of circular rt in a clockwise direction. From looking at your topo it was clear they were not following "terrain"....but when I looked at the photo...If I was matching the area up correctly it looked to me like they were following an "edge", that appeared to be between old and new growth.....that is the kind of feature I look for. My experaince has been that deer follow edges...such as the line created by a timbering or pine/hardwoods, or swamp/pines or new/old cut timber.... I look for edges...sometimes they match up to terrain such as draws..sometimes they match up to man made edges.... It is just another tool.... I'm not saying that I can look at a sat. image and tell whichj tree a buck is rubbing...I'm saying I can pick out likely spots and then go look.... SB
When I get home, I'll tell you what I suspect....but your stand spots mostly made sense to me a couple I didn't see the attraction and then some spots I thought looked really good you didn't have any stand placements I figured was not on available property... But ir is a fun tool and it works.... SB
I agree with this and to add: once I start putting deer sign on the topo it shows me how they prefer to travel in that particular area.
