Night Crawler

So..we condemn the use of electronics to navigate in the woods heh?

What says you old salts about the 40-50k $ worth of electronics on boats?

Give me a muth efin break.

I have woodsmanship...and I teach my son the same. I also teach him about modern technology

I do not trust my phone as a GPS to get me home safe.

However I use huntstand light to mark my stands, deer beds, rub and scrape lines and it links with weather to tell me where my scent is going at different times of my hunt. I like it.

Oldtimr

Thousand dollars worth of navigation equipment isn't going to help you if it goes down, so anyone who does not know how to read a chart and navigate by using time and speed and a compass may as well save their money. BTW, I owned big boats, you can equip a boat with radar and GPS for one heck of a lot less than 40 or 50K. I still maintain electronic gadgets and gizmos are being used as a replacement for skill and I am correct. How many people on land or on water using a gps have the skill to navigate themselves out of trouble if their equipment goes out? Not very many percentage wise. We live in a time when learning the basics is too much trouble, rights of passage are tossed aside in order to get instant gratification and you can see the results every where you look. Why learn anything if a gadget can do it for you. I suspect if we could live long enough we would see the human race devolve to the point where the brain would fit into a golf ball.

vapahunter

If you do not like new rechnology then do bot use it. To condemm and try to villfy others for using it s just showing that it is your way or the highway and that is not very sportsman like. If it is legal then who are you to condemm others for using it. This type of discussion is getting so regular for some and shows true disrespect to other hunters especially up and coming new hunters. Don't like it to bad go back to your cave and hunt with your spears. Each one of us have used what was considered new at one time or the other. Get over it.

turkey harvester

Well put!!! Old people can't get used to the new wave of technology.

Oldtimr

Vapa, that is my opinion, if you don't like it, I don't much care! Unsportsmanlike because I prefer skill over gadgets, give me a break.

woodenb14

newsflash: a compass is a gadget. a compass is technology

Topgun 3006

So now we are unsportsmanlike if our opinion differs from others, LOL! That may be the biggest bunch of BS I've read here in quite a while! This is a forum for discussion just like others on most hunting websites and just because some opinions differ on this or any other subject sure as haydes doesn't mean a person is unsportsmanlike. In this particular instance the subject is technology and there is nothing wrong with that, but our member is merely trying to state that if a person tries to only rely on modern gadgets with no knowledge of the skills that a lot of us old timers grew up with it may cost you your life! Heck, I'm 68 and use a modern GPS with a microchip that designates property boundaries and land ownership and that can't be done with a compass. However, I also carry a compass my Dad used in WW II and I know how to shoot an azimuth to get out of a place if I have to without using that battery operated GPS. Most of you youngsters probably don't even know what shooting an azimuth is, and all I will say is that it isn't a 4 legged critter!

super_hunt54

90% of the younglings nowadays wouldn't know what taking a heading of 218 degrees is without the use of Google. I too enjoy using a GPS as it does make life in the big woods a hell of a lot easier. I hunt in places where few humans have stepped foot on in centuries. A GPS does make navigating such places much easier but I sure as heck do NOT depend on the devises. Batteries die, electronics fail. Plain and simple. Hunting the places I have hunted is extremely different than your back yard hunters of today. But the problem doesn't so much lie in our youth but in our own generation for not passing on the skills required for survival and woodsmanship in the wild. Courses such as those that Flags stated are so few and far between they really aren't worth mentioning. The fault lies solely on our old shoulders folks. I taught my kids woods craft. The same as I was taught. I also taught several other children and even some adults. But there are few people out there that were willing to teach these brats of today just as there are just too few brats today willing to learn.

alleyyooper

That is so funny us old people teaching young people out door skills.
My grand daughter came to spend a week with gramps and grams. She was so glued to her smart phone and its need to be hooked to the charger it was hard to get her out of the house for a little trip around the lake in a canoe. Ya that was the extent of our out doors together. Yet I walked the dog every morning thru the woods for an hour and again every evening.
She had to keep checking her face book, twitter, e mail, text and all the apps she had on her phone. If you said some thing to her she would reply what did you say because she was so engrossed in her phone.
I even phoned her and she got upset because it was a voice call.

Al

Champlain Islander

So I think we are all in agreement that technology isn't the enemy. Coupling that with practical experience and common sense makes for a better mousetrap. Some people embrace change while others don't. I guess if this thread accomplishes anything it will be to give people unacquainted with the old school basics a hint that they should learn about them just in case the technology fails. Dead batteries or falling and breaking the unit whether it is a GPS or smart phone could prove disastrous especially when one is in a wilderness or big woods setting and a storm hits blocking out reference to the sun. On the flip side for those who hold onto the old ways change often comes hard. Trying something new might open some new opportunity and enhance the experience. When we first started our cross country elk hunting trips we relied on an atlas with mixed success. Along came the garmin and life got much easier. But....we still keep the atlas in the map pocket behind the seat.