Direction Finders?

[Micheal]

Plan on doing some fishing in some streams and lakes off the beaten path and was wondering if'n there is any new techie thing available (hopefully reasonably priced); other than the old stand-by of a compass and contour map?
The wife's Tom-Tom is only good to the trail-head(s).
And no, I don't own a cell phone so an app for one won't help.....

[ace admirer]

lowrance has a auto/crosscrountry model GPS that has an internal battery good for 4 hours. Xog, i think

[MichaelZ]

If you are off the beaten path, you might want to borrow a cell phone as well in case of emergency. But otherwise, a GPS is what you want.

[farmerDale]

Honestly, I would choose a GOOD compass, and a map first. This AFTER I did a bunch of practice orienting. With no sun, can you still tell general directions?

Folks got along for a long time with simple, cheap technology. I have a hand held gps I take moose hunting. I refer to my map, and my woods skills long before I would choose my emergency measures: My compass and my gps.

Part of my reason for leaning towards the basics, is that once I was lost, and my gps would not pick up a signal for several hours in the dense forest. My compass was defunct, and pointing backwards, and so my map was upside down and backwards.

Looking at the trees, and other features, I walked out of there using my common sense. It was scary to have to NOT rely on technology that should have worked, but knowing some skills saved me a lot of hassle that night. The bonus was, when I got re-orientated, a 160 class buck crossed a beaver dam at the wrong time...

[Micheal]

Well, the (good?) compass and relief map I got; even know how to use them as well as a few of the other skills needed (as mentioned by farmerDale).

Was just wondering if'n there was some latest tech gadget that may be better(?) at getting me back to a starting point or such. Specially since there are some spots that you have to travel around some major blow-down areas and can't just stay on the stream you are trying to fish.

As for getting "lost" ahhh, haven't yet. There were a few times that for a couple of hours I couldn't figure out which way I needed to travel, but generally I knew where I was - in the West Canada Lake Wilderness area within the Adirondack State Park...... so how could I be "lost".......

Borrow a cell phone??????? Don't know of any cell phone owner who could go any length of time (minutes even) without going into a panic state cause they weren't connected to ______? (Whatever).

[alleyyooper]

Lots of companies make small gps units for sports persons. My hunting partners even had a preprogram fuction, so he preprogramed the nearest pizza joint to our UPPER Michigan deer camp. He could access that pizza joint from deep in a cedar swamp and the shortest path to get there.
My 12 channel Garman about 20 years old now never lost satilite coverage deep in the woods but the compass did go hokie, I figure due to the iron ore in the area.
Pratiace useing it before hitting the woods. Brother bought a brand new Magellan on a Friday evening and Saturday hit the cedar swamp and didn't know how to work it to get back out.

This will give you some idea on cost and the place to buy the model you may like. I like my 20 year old garmin fine. It was 129.00 way back then.
http://www.thefind.com/electronics/i...nting-gps-unit


Al

[fishhead]

You can get a gps and then load aerial GIS images of the areas you want to fish. You can also save waypoints of hot spots.

[tallpines]

I like my refurbished Garmin Map 60.
I bought it on eBay for $100.oo about 6 years back.

I take my cell phone with me but it is useless on most of the forest ATV trails we follow ---- no signal.

[Nimrod]

I swear that my compass has been wrong many times but it always turns out that it was right and I was wrong. A good compass and a topo map will get you out of almost any area. The exception is that the compass won't work if there is a lot of iron ore in the ground.

The handheld GPS units can be very handy. You do have to save (enter a waypoint) the location of the car or camp before you start out. Then it will tell you the direction and distance you are away from the car or camp. Another function is that it will keep track of your route as you go in and then you can backtrack it. The biggest problem I have with my GPS is that the batteries die really really quickly. Always have the map and compass as backup.

[Micheal]

Thanks again for all the info.
Will be looking into the GPS units, since I like to actually see (hands-on) what I'm going to buy I will pop into Gander Mt next week, check out what they have and prices; then go from there.

Again, Thanks....

[wannabechef]

If you get a GPS make sure is both land and marine if you want to see points of interest on the water like the ocean.

[alleyyooper]

I use rechargeable AA in my garmin. They lkast the day but I figure To help save batterys I shut it off when I get to the area where I want to spend the day.
Mine also works on the water. Once out on Lake Huron a fog rolled in and the GPS got us back to the habor break wall and could have probly drove right on the boat trailer if that break wall wasn't in the way.
You really don't need a bunch of fancy stuff just one that will pick up the satelites and keep ythe places you want marked.
I have the cabin at Deer camp as a permant mark then can use the go to fuction to get there from any place I decide to turn on the unit and get to the cabin with out useing the same path to get back.

Al

[Cornhusker]

I've got an inexpensive Magellan that I originally got for geocaching.
It will lead you back on the exact path you followed, has some topo type maps and a built in compass
You can mark fishing spots, tree stands, whatever you want.
It's supposed to be accurate to within 15 feet, but I've found it's usually more like 4 or 5 ft.