By: Chase Dreilich, MWF Recreational Angling Coordinator
I was fortunate to grow up in a family with a strong outdoor influence. I can remember at a young age the rousing energy that the decreasing temperatures of fall would bring to our household. I can remember the excited feeling of a cool fall morning. Freshly brewed coffee mingled with the scent of hunting gear, guns, and ammo would awaken the senses on the day of a hunt.
As part of the right of passage into the outdoor world, I’d get to sit in on various planning sessions that would happen throughout the fall. These sessions would normally involve all hunting parties and a stack of paper maps from areas scattered all over the province. A collection of knowledge from past hunts and adventures. The first 15 minutes of the planning would be spent looking through the pile of wrinkled and torn topo maps mixed with coffee-stained landowner maps, each covered in handwritten notes and highlighter marks. I remember staring at that pile of maps and thinking “Look at all of these areas that I can explore.” Fast forward 20 years and here we are in the new age of technology with that pile of maps, plus a whole lot more, right at the tip of our fingers. In today’s technologically advanced world, hunting has become more than just a leisure activity; it has evolved into a sophisticated pursuit with advanced tools and techniques. Among the arsenal of modern hunting aids, iHunter stands out as a game-changing companion for outdoor enthusiasts. iHunter is a revolutionary mobile application designed to enhance hunting experiences by providing a range of features that aid in navigation, scouting, and overall success.
The iHunter app was first released in 2012 in Alberta. As it expanded across Canada, I was lucky enough to be part of the beta testing for the app here in Manitoba. Since then, it has been an essential tool in my outdoor pursuits. There’s a plethora of tools that the iHunter app provides and they are ever-expanding.
iHunter provides high-quality map layers through 3 different subscription levels. The base subscription provides you with high-resolution satellite imagery along with topographic maps, and road maps. Some of these base maps are available to cache on your device for use when you are offline or out of a cellular service area – a key feature of this platform. With the base map layers, you are provided with all GHA information, hunting zone boundaries and game hunting season information, wildlife management areas, first nation reserves, wildfire maps, CWD zones, and CWD sample drop-off sites.
Next is the public land subscription. This provides information and boundaries of huntable public parks, provincial forests, community pastures, private conservation land, and more.
Landowner maps are available for purchase beyond the other two subscriptions. iHunter revolutionizes scouting with the availability to layer maps and control the opacity between them. With the GPS functionality and active tracking, there’s no more guesswork as to where you are and what piece of property you are looking at.
iHunter also allows you to mark waypoints, and create tracks, and routes on the go. You can share all that along with your precise location with your hunting partners right in the app through the chat feature. It has never been easier to share information.
Now if you are worried about losing all your waypoints off your old GPS, fear not! There’s a simple way for you to transfer over all your current data to this new system. There’s even a library of instructional videos on how to do that and utilize the other features iHunter has to offer.
With fall knocking on the door, now is the perfect time to get familiar with the iHunter app. Get scouting and get hunting. Eventually, you might become an iHunter nut like me and use it on a near-daily basis expanding its uses into angling, foraging, and all other aspects of your adventurous life!
To learn more you can go to ihunterapp.com.
