Google Earth
 

Has anyone used the Google Earth satellite imagery program for pre-scouting purposes? If so, what unique or interesting ways has it helped you before you went into the field? If you are using it to look at area you have already hunted, has the program taught you something you didn't already know?

RE: Google Earth
 

Well i find it didnt really help me in the mountainous area's cause its pretty much all green and you cant get a sense of the depth with the hills but in flatter area's i could pre-scout coulee's and tree lines and such for deer.

RE: Google Earth
 

i use it alot with my usaphoto. you can place your waypoints from your gps on the google earth, to kind of help check your hunting areas. i really like the tilt feature, it helps show bowls, benches , and actually how far down the mountain goes. plus i have been able to find so hunting places to check out. and you can get a rough idea on distance to new areas, so you know roughly how far your gonna hike.

RE: Google Earth
 

Hey thanks bkkeys i didnt know about the tilt feature on it, wow thats awesome

RE: Google Earth
 

[/align]I haven't looked at google lately ,I like the yahoo maps better with the roads maked and named it helps me alot .I do spend alot of time studing maps or should I say downloading them in to my brain.I carry arials everywhere I go.

RE: Google Earth
 

bkkeys,

I am not the most technically proficient person in the world, so I was wondering if you could explain exactly how you are using the gps to plot way points into GE. This sounds like a great way to learn/scout.

RE: Google Earth
 

I love it. Use it daily for hunting and fishing purposes.

RE: Google Earth
 

I tried google earth a couple of times but couldn't get the resolution I needed.
I'm now using USAPhotoMaps (www.jdmcox.com) along with the CDOW mapping tool.
They are great tools for researching various units in CO.
Once I find an area, I normally print out the satellite photo and Topographical maps on opposite sides of waterproof paper. It folds up nicely and easily fits in a shirt pocket. The maps usually lasts for at least one season.
AB

RE: Google Earth
 

I use the free version, the 400.00 version is better.

Frankly tho, a 1947 topo and a compass work as well as anything.

RE: Google Earth
 

I've had mixed results with Google Earth. Some map areas are relatively detailed, at least so you can pick out features of ridges, draws, creeks and other major structures. Other map areas, it's poor resolution and you can see little more that shading. It may be enough to find woods vs. grassland. Yes, the elevation feature is good to help distinguish topo features.

I also have used MS Virtual Earth. Though the field of view is somewhat limited, the maps seems to be better detail. I've used both to get an idea of new hunting areas the woodland, elevations, etc. to limit the time on the ground of where to start.

RE: Google Earth
 

click on the tack,, you can enter the lat and lon. and name the waypoints,, if you explore you can change the markers to seperate waypoints, certain one for camps, or wallows, or whatever you have on the gps.
not all areas are aeiral photos yet,, give it time, and also keep updateing the google earth,, took about 4 months from the time they launched it to get aeiral photos in my area, actually it split a mountain in the area i hunt half was colored map, and half was aeiral photo,, kind of drove me nuts.
also on the left side of the main screen you can click different things to show up on the map, water roads parks all different kinds of things.

RE: Google Earth
 

After I posted my response, I went back into Google Earth and tried to bring up a couple locations I've looked at before. All I see tonight is bright green in the window pane where the map should be. It seems I've run into this before and found a way to display the zoomable map fine, but not today.

Any idea of what setting or other thing I'm doing wrong?

RE: Google Earth
 

if you have the updated ver. move your cursor into the top right corner, the controls dissappear when your cursor isn't there. and you might want to update if you can, if its bright green, it might have zoomed in to close.

RE: Google Earth
 

I tried as you said and zoomed in and out. The tool bar is on the bottom locked in place. I've tried several thousand feet altitude, 5000 ft. 10000 ft. etc., etc. It's still bright green. I did down load the latest free version about 2 weeks back thinking that might be it. Still no go. It could be that the latest needs a newer graphic card my PC doesn't have. I can get by with MS Virtual Earth and my map source Topo map software for general research and downloading to my GPS.
It ultimately comes down to doing the research possible beforehand then putting boots on the ground in the most likely areas where there is sign of game and start hiking and glassing to find them.. :)

RE: Google Earth
 

I figured out why I was seeing only "green" in the map perspective of Google Earth. I went to their help troubleshooting and saw something similar for Macs needing to enable accepting "cookies" from this Google Earth site. I had upgraded to IE 7 in the past month and suppose that it reset my security settings and sites that I accept cookies from. So, I added that site in IE options > security and also in my PC's security software to accept cookies from that site. It now works for me. Thanks for the suggestions.

RE: Google Earth
 

I've been using this one for a few years now...not the best, but free.
You can switch back and forth from typo to aerial.

www.terraserver-usa.com