This post isn't all that awful old and I am still alive and kicking. I just bought my 2015 tags the other day even so am starting to get excited looking forward.

At our UP deer camp a compass isn't all that accrete either. I was going to show my hinting partner a way thru a really thick cedar swamp to a hard wood ridge on the other side after a wet heavy 6 inches of snow one year. I could almost get to the start of the trail thru the swamp and the compass said north was that away, take one step and it said north was over there another step and it pointed even another direction. Lots of iron ore in the area so the compass just goes nuts in some spots.
I got a GPS as soon as they came out with a 12 channel job. Yet there were even places in thick hemlock cover you could not get a signal with it even.

Al