Peterburg, Alaska Bear Hunting Trail – Using the GPS
July 1st, 2008 at 9:34 pm (Bear Hunting Tips)
On our black bear hunt on Kupreanof Island in Petersburg, Alaska we carried multiple GPS units with us. They saved our bacon many times, boy are we glad we had them!
Here is a close up view of our GPS trail.
On the way back from the location marked KILL you’ll notice that the return path swerves back and forth multiple times. This happened because the weather at the time of return was quite violent and it was about 11:00 PM. We couldn’t see five feet in front of us, so, Frank held the GPS unit close to his face and would yell to Roger, who was driving the boat, which direction to ago. We attempted to follow a previous path so as not to hit any rocks at low tide.
Here is the same view zoomed out. You can also see where we started in Petersburg, Alaska.
topamax attention deficit side affects
One of my high priority bear hunting tips is to take a GPS or three with you. It will be critical that you are very familiar with how it works. I personally did some geocaching in preparation for the Petersburg, Alaska bear hunt. It definitely paid off. We used both black and white, and color GPS units. We ended up using the color one as our go-to….it used more batteries but was much easier to see and navigate with.
Benefits of having a good GPS were:
1. The ability to mark locations that we scouted out beforehand. For example, we had never been to this part of Alaska and, therefore, didn’t know how to get to our cabin. We locked the location of Breiland Slough Cabin into our GPS and it directed us from Petersburg straight to our destination.
2. As I mentioned earlier, the precarious nature of the rocks at low tide required us to follow previously taken paths. This was fairly easy with the GPS….we just followed the trail.
3. Similar to marking locations beforehand, when we found a location we wanted to remember we locked it into the GPS for easy return later.
4. Upon returning from our bear hunting trip we loaded the GPS trails onto Google Earth for later use and memories! The use of Google Earth is also noteworthy and is a handy tool for scouting out an area if you don’t have the ability to scout beforehand.
5. Withstood the weather. If you are going to the coast of Alaska bear hunting or anywhere similar that rains a lot make sure you purchase a quality GPS unit that is waterproof.
Cons of a GPS:
1. Loading a bunch of batteries.
2. It is too easy to get comfortable with the GPS. You can become reliant.
