GPS For trapping

[furking]

Any of you guys who run a ton of traps ever use a GPSfor marking your traps. if so what brand do you like I would like to get one for fishing lake of the woods/Northwest angle also. Thanks

[mnarcher]

[trappincoyotes39]

Yes I have a garmin color screen handheld works well for marking locations, sets and coyote dens or getting to a den the plane has marked and gives me the GPS cords.

[thorsmightyhammer]

If you are gonna get one that is good for LOW you will want one that is compatible with the lake master chip.

I bought a lowrance gps/depthfinder with a seven inch screen this spring that I absolutely love.

Mounted it to my snowmobile when I was fishing whitefish bay for trout. Its pretty cool.

Little spendy to be totally practical but lowrance makes some pretty good handhelds as well. I have a lowrance h20 handheld that works pretty good as well but I dont think they make them anymore.

In the handhelds I actually like the garmans better personally but originally the lakemaster chips werent compatible with the garmin's. I believe that isnt the case anymore.

[trappnman]

as far as marking traps- I had to use one on the otter traps, and while I understood it for the study, didn't see any practical use for it o na trapline, because the ones we used weren't precise enough to actually locate a trap if truely lost- they just marked the area- the 20 feet or whatever, and I've never "lost" a trap, where my memory didn't get me that close-

but maybe the ones today are accurate to within inches or a foot- my use was 8-10 years-

[mnarcher]

They are much more accurate these days Steve. the one I run in my truck is unbeliveably accurate. I don't actually mark traps with it as it is on my laptop, and never leaves the truck, but I mark locations with it and have an icon that tells me where and how many traps are there...

Such as:

Loc 1) 2 n/w- 1 s/w meaning I would have 2 on the northwest side of the creek and one on the southwest. I use it mainly for mink trapping a long ways from home on many creeks I've never seen before I set them up. Makes it easy to find farm ditches in the dark.

Personally I've ot had real good luck with Lowrance products for longeviety. They are the easiest to master and friendliest touse as far as the ones I've run, but they don't seem to last too long. I went through 3 antennas in a row on my 27C before I got one that now works. Before that I had an 18c and it also ha a faulty antenna.
\
On small handhelds I have had the best luck with the Garmin products, and they are pretty accurate as long as there is a clear view to the sky, and there arent too many heavy clouds.


michael

[calvin]

I think price and being able to learn it are issues as well. I bought one last winter for about $180. I couldn't justify spending more than that on something that only kept track of traps (for me). I couldn't figure it out and the Geek squad guys at Worst buy had no intel for me, either. I played with it for 2 days and got nowhere. It went back.

If I were to buy another one, I would make sure someone else had one that I could learn from...but I/m a techie failure. Maybe just find a (todays) 12 year old kid to help you.

[trappincoyotes39]

Steve they are very accurate not inches but good enough to get you to where one needs to go for many applications. I mark coyote denning locations and then I can know was it the 2nd draw over or 3rd where that den was last year, etc.

Your location can effect accuracy but it will give you a reading as to how many feet within it is reading.

Here is the one I have a nice unit just make sure you buy the map sets for your area to give you the detail you need.

I'm no super techy person but this one is fairly straight forward and a little reading of the manual and you can get it to do what a trapper needs pretty quickly.

g.factoryoutletstore.com/details/2945/garmin-gpsmap-60csx.html

[stickbowhntr]

There are so many out there now that have way too many features for me to LEARN at first. I know guys that have and use and they are a lot more advanced on this kind of stuff than I- I can see where it coul dhlpe if I understood a lot of the features. Just like the trail cameras and how they have advanced a lot of ideas.

[Wright Brothers]

Sure would be nice for those traps that move under deep snow.

"I Put it right here! Well I SHOULD have put it right here"

We got dumped on couple years ago, 2 days before end of season.
By the time I learned how to tune the metal detector I had a half a bucket of scrap metal.
And a sore back.

[thorsmightyhammer]

If a guy is going to trap the same spots year after year I'd say they would be a waste fo money.

I bought my newest one more for ice fishing than trapping but hey if I can get a dual use why not.

Here is what it looks like. I mounted it to my snowmobile and in my pickup this spring. It may never see a boat lol.



I'd be lost without it on some of the cattail sloughs I trap in the winter.

On the road line I could do it old school and use maps to mark stuff but all i have to do with this is hit the enter button twice and the stop is marked. And than when it comes time to check traps I dont have to look at a map or think exactly where did I put the traps on a slough or lake, I can pretty much tell when I am within fifty yards of the mark.

Michael the lowrance with the external atennaes were troublesome. My newest one has an internal. We will see.

On the handhelds I think they are all pretty much the same but i personally prefer a garman.

[northof50]

There are daily pages out there that tell what satalites are above you at what times, so then you can determine 'error of accoracy' after you take reading. A lot of the newer sats give cm error vs 10's of M errors.
If all else fails it does help to have a daughter with an Engineering Degree in this.

[Scott W.]

Something I noticed, and have talked to my farming neighbors who farm with GPS is what I will call satellite drift. After a trap, or actually waypoint, has been in place for a long time, say 6 months, it will not be in the same place because (I think) the satllites moved. I asked a neighbor if they could combine corn from the same coordinates that they planted it to, he said no. Even though the accuracy is as good as 6 inches in real time, over time it shifts. Still wouldn't be without it, especially for gopher trapping where I'm moving traps a lot. And I'm a poor map drawer.

[RdFx]

I think Gappa has his own personal GPS called Lori!

[billmeyerhoff]

In order to consistently get an accuracy of less than ten feet a differential correction needs to be applied to the satellite derived position.

In unfamiliar terrain with a large number of sets their is an advantage over memory and also over pen and paper. Not complete magic in a box but close and will save most some time in a new area.