Contributors to this thread:
Does anyone have any experience using On X Maps? I have a Garmin Montana with the TOPO 24K Mountan South chip (AZ and NM). They're not woth the money IMO. I am planning a hunt to CO and this map chip system looks pretty awesome. I was just going to but the Mountain North TOPO chip but then I found this ...
http://www.huntinggpsmaps.com/overview#.VbIN1vlVhBc
Huh? You're welcome I guess???
Apparently just crickets out there! :-)
My father and I will be hunting in MT this year for antelope/mule deer so I added the MT map to my iPhone. Pretty simple to use (turning on/off 'layers' to display/hide Public Land, Private Land, roads, access, etc).
Normally we hunt only national forest land, but that is generally too high for the antelope. This will help us to ensure that we don't cross a private border.
I haven't played with much else on it, but it does the things that I bought it for.
Cool. I'm looking at it for a CO trip for elk, although where i'll be is totally on NF land, so I don't really think I need to spend the C note on it. I'd be adding the micro SD into my Garmin GPS. But that's why I found it. I really think it would be great in my home turf in AZ. Lots of checkerboard surrounding the NF I live near/in. I threw this up here to see if anyone's been using it. I think I'll just buy AZ and see how it goes. Thanks for the post.
Skip - I think you are right to only buy the AZ. In CO, you can get a pretty cheap (hardcopy) NF map that will show you all the entry points you need and free topo maps for the Garmin.
If you have an Android or iOS phone, the X Maps is $30/state per year. You can turn off the data/wifi and just use it as a GPS. It might pay to get that as a backup if you are going to try a bunch of spots in CO? I suppose that you can always wait and hit a coffee shop to download if you decide to do this when you are out there.
Keep this thread in mind after the season and report your results.
For Colorado I have the Garmin GPS maps made by Above The Timber (ATT) think they are $60. I couldn't ask for anything more for my GPS. I recently purchased On X Maps for Wyoming mostly because they are not available from Above The Timber. The little I have used it so far I don't think it has as many items named such as small streams and trails as does ATT. It works well though. No complaints just a little expensive. ATT private land is just color coded private so you don't know who owns it but that may not be worth an extra $40 to you.
They are just OK in my opinion. The property boundaries seem to be fairly accurate now (they weren't on the first couple of versions), but their forest crop listings are so inaccurate that I can't believe they try to include them as many are wrong. They continue to list my own land under forest crop "Open" even though they have told me they would correct it and realized it was wrong.
On the New Mexico map, they will show quite a few wash-outs as roads. Don't rely on those as being passable or you may not get to your destination.
There are errors with Onyx. I replaced mine with the CO chip from DIY Hunting Maps and like it much better. Haven't found any errors with land ownership so far, and the road info is much more detailed and accurate
My first GPS and x maps premium chip will be here today, can't wait until this weekend to try them out.
Ill have the check DIY hunting maps as I don't have a lot of confidence in On X
Looks like DIY has CO and WY so far. No phone apps.
Not sure how old these apps are, but it must be a lot of work to keep the a state updated when it comes to land ownership and property lines.
On a side note, we have a lake we fish here in MN that has access that is under dispute. The owner thinks the county survey is 100' off which would make it a private lake. The county put in a small parking lot but blocked the trail to the lake with rocks to prevent boats. There must be dozens/hundreds/thousands? of these type of situations going on at all times. Compound that by having a hunter come on your private land and pointing to his GPS saying that it is public...
When I talked to OnX - they said they get all their GIS info from the county government GIS departments. So if you think their are errors - look at the source.
Some counties have no GIS department, and no data. Morgan county Colorado is one example, and OnX has no ownership data.
When I went to get my 545 acres surveyed, I got a quote for $10,500. Ouch. Error free work is expensive.
Not sure where DIY gets their data, but I would suspect its all the same - from the county government.
Well everyone, great to be on this new site for me. I have been using onXmaps HUNT for more than 4 years. The most valuable not shootable item I have in my bag or hand. On my own site www.bwanabubba.com I expect my hunters that contact me to have a Garmin GPS and onXmaps HUNT software. I am old Garmin Topo guy from the past, but anyone that still uses it might just get in trouble with the lack of accuracy accessible land. In the state of Oregon, one can get up to $6250.00 fine for Trespassing. Just think about being on National Forest from the Garmin Topo, only to find there is 200 acres of private land and it is a gold mine. Everyone that I help, finds they love the product! FRB
Grasshopper, they have a big chunk of National Forest shown as RMNP. Its miles from RMNP. I called the Onyx guys and they didn't seem too concerned about it.
The DIY and Kirsch's overlays show it correctly as USFS.
Maybe it'll keep the hunters away and improve the hunting....
I'll probably buy the DIY, you can never have to many tools!
The thing with DIY is that it has road overlays (open and closed) that Onyx doesn't have.
DIY doesn't cover all of wyoming. And what they do have appears to require 3 cards.
"The thing with DIY is that it has road overlays (open and closed) that Onyx doesn't have."
The MT version that I just bought has a road layer.
What do you mean by open and closed? The area we hunt in MT has seasonal closures of the NF roads during hunting season. Would it show that detail in CO?
If DIY does all these things, it might explain why it takes them longer to get out to all the states.
Yes, it shows closed roads in the NF that are "x'ed out". Gated, bermed-off, etc.. Onyx doesn't show those. Extremely valuable for someone like me who likes to hike-bike them for hunting access.
Jordan just started his DIY company last year so he's adding one state at a time.
a little off topic but has anyone used the garmin birdseye option for selected garmin models. Looking at actual satellite images vs topo seems enticing to me.
Birdeye is a bit limited but I have spent a lot of time with other sat imagery on my garmin. It took hours of work after hacking the garmin bios to download then convert the imagery to jnx format. It sounded better on paper than it turned out to be, for my hunts anyway.
The program works pretty well for Co. Used it on my android smart phone recently for spring turkey. It took me a minute to figure some things out, but I think it'd be pretty easy to figure out on a microchip and gps. I plan on getting a new gps that will be able to take a chip so I can get it. So I definitely recommend it depending where you hunt here. It helps knowing all the boundaries.