How to Go Hunting with Gaia GPS Map Sources

Gaia GPS can help keep you safe and legal while hunting across the United States.

With a Premium Membership that’s currently just $40 per year, Gaia GPS has a comprehensive catalog of maps for hunters, including private parcels, public land boundaries, game management units (GMUs), and other overlays, combined with the best digital topo maps and vivid satellite imagery. Get the best maps with the best tools in the app and on gaiagps.com.

With tools for scouting and navigation, you can use Gaia GPS to find locations, plan, navigate, and mark important spots out in the field.

Use Gaia GPS Map Sources to Find that New Spot

Hunting Catalog

The Gaia GPS catalog tailored for hunting includes private and public land ownership overlays and an ever growing collection of 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 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:

Mapbox Satellite Imagery

The crisp satellite imagery available from Mapbox lets you have a bird’s eye view of the terrain and makes a great base map for any of the hunting overlays mentioned above.

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.

USFS Classic & USFS 2016

With a large portion of the West designated as national forest, the USFS map layers 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

Combination of the Contour Overlay and the Mapbox Satellite layer 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 layers 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 treestand 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 record 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.