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How to go Hunting with Gaia GPS Map Sources

How to Hunt with Gaia GPS

by Nathan Copeland October 19, 2022
written by Nathan Copeland

Stay safer and find legal ground while hunting across the United States. You just need that little app you already have on your phone – Gaia GPS.

With Gaia GPS Premium, you unlock our comprehensive catalog of maps for hunters, including private land parcels, public land boundaries, game management units (GMUs) for each State, combined with the best digital topo maps and vivid satellite imagery.

And with tools for scouting and navigation, Gaia GPS helps you find locations, plan, navigate, and mark important spots out in the field.

Use Gaia GPS Maps to Find that New Spot

Hunting Catalog

The Gaia GPS catalog tailored for hunting includes private and public land ownership overlays and state-specific game management units.

All hunters will find the Private Land overlay useful for viewing property lines and land ownership information.

When hunting a specific game management unit, add the corresponding Game Management Unit overlay to your favorite based map layer to easily view the boundaries of the unit as you hunt.

With nearly 640 million acres of public land available for use by hunters the Public Land overlay make quick work of showing the location of public land and the managing agency.

Combining the Private Land overlay, with the Public Land overlay and your state’s game management units produces the ultimate hunt map for any hunter not matter if you are chasing elusive bighorn sheep in the Montana backcountry or working bird dogs through the savannas of Georgia.

Montana Big Horn Sheep GMU, US Private Land, and Publlic Land overlays layered on top of Gaia Topo

Base Maps

Gaia GPS includes dozens of great base maps, however, hunters will benefit the most from these base maps:

Satellite Imagery

Choose from crisp satellite imagery with or without labels to get a bird’s eye view of the terrain. You can also use near-in-time satellite imagery to get a sense of real-time conditions on the ground. Check out our suite of Satellite maps here.

Gaia Topo

Gaia Topo not only makes a great map layer for discovering trails and access points; it also helps identify key land features like funnels, tucked away creek draws, and hidden meadows. Check out Gaia Topo here.

USFS Classic & USFS 2016

With a large portion of the West designated as national forest, the USFS maps provide great coverage for finding access points and undiscovered hunting spots on national forest and grasslands.

Scout from within the App or on gaiagps.com

When you scout with Gaia GPS, you should adjust your map layers to highlight the best data for your hunt. For the base map, try Gaia Topo, Satellite Imagery, or one of the USFS options. Then add any of the hunting overlays and adjust their transparency to create the prefect hunt map.

Gaia Topo & US Shaded Relief

Gaia Topo combined with the US Shaded Relief overlay

Produce a 3D base map for your hunt by layering the US Shaded Relief overlay at 50% transparency on top of Gaia Topo.

Satellite Imagery & Contour Lines

Contours overlay layered on to the Satellite with Labels base map

The combination of the Contour Overlay and the Satellite map can shed some light on the local flora and lay of the land.

USFS 2016 & USFS MVUM

USFS MVUM overlay and the USFS 2016 base map

The addition of the USFS MVUM overlay to the USFS map makes identifying access points straight forward when hunting national forests or grasslands. 

Land Ownership & Game Management Units

Colorado Big Game GMUs, Private Land, Public Land, and US Shaded Relief layered over Gaia Topo

After customizing your base map, add the relevant game management unit overlay for your hunt at 100% transparency to easily distinguish the borders of the game management unit.

Then go ahead and add the Private and Public Land overlays as the top two layers. Organizing the layers in this way allows you to quickly adjust the transparency of these land ownership overlays so you can know whether you have open access to hunt an area or contact the listed owner for access.

Scouting

Now start locating possible glassing spots, bedding areas, travel corridors, trail camera and tree stand sites with custom waypoint icons.

NeoTreks Land Use base map with custom waypoints

After you have finished scouting, use the app to download an offline copy of your custom hunt map and sync your custom waypoints to the app if you used gaiagps.com to scout.

Hunting with Gaia GPS

While in the field, use Gaia GPS to make quick work of finding down game by recording a track and saving waypoints along the blood trail.

Using the Guide Me feature can also help shaves minutes off your pre-dawn hike to your new hunting spot or review your trip stats to estimate just how long it will take to pack out your harvest.

Organizing your hunting waypoints, tracks, and offline maps into separate folders for each management unit or state you hunt, can create an easily accessible digital hunting journal.

Whether planning a solo hunt or a group hunt, Gaia GPS can assist everyone prepare for opening day, no matter if your spot is 1,500 miles away or just a mile from the house.

Spend more time in the field creating memories than stressing over what lies beyond the next ridge.

Join the conversation on the Gaia GPS Community Forums and share how you use Gaia GPS on your hunting adventures.

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Nathan Copeland

Nathan is part of the Gaia GPS Communications Team and can be found on the water or in the woods, sharing his passion for the outdoors.

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