Thursday, September 12, 2013

What's Your Favorite Hunting App?

Thanks to my 9th grade World Civilization teacher, I learned the 6 P's: Prior Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. 

I've been sampling hunting apps for usability, accuracy and reliability. Which is your favorite hunting app?

This free app is called "Hunt Predictor" and can be used for deer, turkey and waterfowl hunts with a 7-day outlook. Using the GPS feature, I've landmarked multiple tree stand locations and can view them with the following map types: terrain, road map, hybrid, satellite. It ranks weather conditions, pressure, temperature, moon illumination, wind speed and direction, the time of year (whether it's peak time or not), and separates the information easily if you are a morning sitter or an evening go-getter. I haven't verified it's accuracy during a season, but so far it doesn't clunky and it has yet to crash - all good things considering it's a free app. 


Hunting App
One other bonus: it ranks each category using deer heads so the more deer heads for a particular category, supposedly the better your chances of scoping a buck. If you base your hunts on weather alone, you can look at how many deer heads (1-5) were given for each of the following categories: pressure, weather, temperature. If the moon is your tactical friend, it's also ranked with deer heads (again, 1-5) and gives you a percentage of moon illumination, say 52% one day and 62% the next day. For those of you who don't want to get all fancy with percentages and numbers, just look at the line graph tab draws a line on a graph telling you camo-up or go back to bed.

Only part I wish was different ( I say this without having verified the accuracy of the app during a hunting season) is better usability when you are switching from one view to the next. I've gotten a little lost inside the app trying to navigate from one particular screen to the next, for example, switching from seeing my tree stand terrain map to the weather predictions for that particular day.

Do you have a favorite hunting app? Give me a holler on Facebook and let me know why it's your fave.