Opinions/Reviews of Hunting Property phone apps

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Spot05

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I need real life reviews from people who have/are using the paid for versions of the different phone apps for hunting properties (OnX, Hunt Stand, Deer Cast). I've seen that most apps have monthly satellite images and each seem to have many different shared things and a couple specific things not offered by the others but I would rather not get a subscription for each, I would rather put that little bit of $ towards something in my woods. I'm trying to improve my wildlife health and habitat for hunting and feel like the reoccurring satellite images would be a great help but I'm pretty sure all the apps have that. Any opinions or reviews will be greatly appreciated..
 
I have used hunt stand several years ago. I personally didn't like it. But I believe they have updated it quite a bit since then. I use onx now and i really like it. I used deer cast for a free trial I like onx better that was a 2 years ago I used it. Deer cast was glitchy and gimmicky imo. Also at the time more expensive because you pay for there guess on deer movement. I pay for the one state on onx now. Not sure of the prices of all of it now.
 
I use OnX and tried I think spartan forge once but liked OnX better. Also take note that they are not always 100% accurate with their property lines or even owner. The property I bought beside my house sometimes still shows the previous owner. I have also found sections of public land that is actually private. I had to check tn land assessment and property maps of the national forest to confirm it was indeed private and not someone just block off the public to use as their own.
 
I had always used Hunt Stand until last year. They made a change which was supposed to be an upgrade and ruined the app in my opinion. I switched to Onyx pretty quickly and won't be going back. It's definitely better than the new Hunt Stand and think I like it more than the old one.
 
Thank you all, I'm having my property surveyed this year so after that the line issue will be resolved as for some reason even TN property viewer can't figure out exactly where the lines are in an area that sticks out like an ear and is nearly 5 acres. Does anyone use or know if the monthly sat images are really monthly?
 
Huntstand just had another upgrade/update. I had the pro version the previous year, got it cheap enough on a promo and then late this year upgraded to the whitetail version and got a free stealthcam revolver. The app is just ok to me, it is awkward and could be a lot more user friendly than it is. Supposedly the desktop/laptop options are easier to use, I don't carry a laptop with me hunting though. The whitetail version does give some good information, but it is not as area specific as they make it out. The times for peak movement are typically about 30-45 minutes off from what I see, but they are consistent. Rut window timing is a little off from what I see on my farm, but is good information to know.

I will go back to the pro version when my year is up with the whitetail version.
 
Spot05 said:
I've seen that most apps have monthly satellite images and each seem to have many different shared things and a couple specific things not offered by the others but I would rather not get a subscription for each, I would rather put that little bit of $ towards something in my woods.
Click to expand...

I use Hunststand but rely on it for almost nothing but property lines. Even that is not super accurate. The monthly satellite pics are so low resolution that you won't be able to make out any detail. If you've got 1,000 acres+ you'll have enough resolution to see where you've done major timber cuts maybe but anything else finer than that will not be clear enough to see.

I got the app when everybody on YouTube was making colorful habitat plans where food plots would be bright green, bedding cuts bright yellow, trail systems in blue, etc. Basically it looked cool & I bought the coolaid thinking it would be a useful tool for mapping out my habitat plan. It wasn't. I am infinitely familiar with my property and how the deer use it already, and the resolution of the app isn't high enough to glean any real info from that I wasn't already aware of. The one map feature I do like is the Terrain Map which is a detailed LIDAR image showing the texture of the ground. However, it's again not high enough resolution for me to zoom in. By the time I zoom enough for my 100 acres to fill the screen the detail has faded too much to see. So for habitat purposes the apps are useless.

That all said I have found it useful at times measuring distance or acreage. I don't use that feature much, certainly not enough to justify the cost of the app, but sometimes it's handy for that.
 
I use onX....tracking feature is cool to walk future habitat projects, burn units, food plots, etc...nice to go back and measure area and to have an aerial view....then if I want to add more detail, notes or whatever Ill screenshot and jump into Powerpoint...fun to see aerial view of future projects.
 
Spot05 said:
Thank you all, I'm having my property surveyed this year so after that the line issue will be resolved as for some reason even TN property viewer can't figure out exactly where the lines are in an area that sticks out like an ear and is nearly 5 acres. Does anyone use or know if the monthly sat images are really monthly?
Click to expand...
I bought a farm a year and a half ago and it still hasn't updated my ownership to it on the app. But the property line from when it was surveyed before was updated. I don't know how quick some of it really is. That's a pile of changes across the US every year.
 
OnX, for sure. Use it for normal hunt stuff, property, dropping different pins and swapping pins, etc.
But, had to chance to put it to the test two years ago. Had an ATV break down on us in UT while scouting, 13 miles from camp, at dusk, in the desert. Used OnX to navigate back to camp in the dark with no moon. It had every single trail and turn exact. Let's just say, we logged a lot of steps!
 
Spot05 said:
I need real life reviews from people who have/are using the paid for versions of the different phone apps for hunting properties (OnX, Hunt Stand, Deer Cast). I've seen that most apps have monthly satellite images and each seem to have many different shared things and a couple specific things not offered by the others but I would rather not get a subscription for each, I would rather put that little bit of $ towards something in my woods. I'm trying to improve my wildlife health and habitat for hunting and feel like the reoccurring satellite images would be a great help but I'm pretty sure all the apps have that. Any opinions or reviews will be greatly appreciated..
Click to expand...
I have used OnX and Huntstand. I like them both for property lines, tracking, marking locations etc. But neither have an accurate satellite image in my experiments. Depending on what you do, you may get away with a free app.
 
I use OnyX, I can display it on the 13" screen in my truck like Google maps for navigation, shows me property owners and lines, I also use it to find preference points or draw odds for the different units I want to hunt in Colorado and Wyoming.
 
I've never used OnX for anything hunting. I only use it for property lines and landowners' names.

Being a digital mapping person, I make all of my own maps and can create symbols for whatever I want on these maps. I have every scrape and rub I've ever found for the last 25 years in different digital layers. I have ever stand location we've used for the last 25 years in layers.

The one thing I haven't been able to figure out how to do is to geo-reference a digital map so I can display it on my phone and have my GPS position shows up correctly on the map. Would love to be able to do that.
 
Spot05 said:
Thank you all, I'm having my property surveyed this year so after that the line issue will be resolved as for some reason even TN property viewer can't figure out exactly where the lines are in an area that sticks out like an ear and is nearly 5 acres. Does anyone use or know if the monthly sat images are really monthly?
Click to expand...
I use OnX. I don't know of any satellite imagery that updates monthly with detail. It appears the satellite imagery on OnX updates once a year. OnX does have a feature "recent imagery". It updates about every two weeks but it's very blurry. I could see where I had some clearing done within a couple weeks.
 
Luckily for us in TN, OnX has used TN for some BETA testing of new modules. They ran through a whole bunch with me last year when I spoke to them at NWTF. (I can't for the life of me remember them, but I think one was oak tree species coverage.) So I think we may get more frequent updates on imagery.
 

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