Hunting with family and friends is one of the greatest opportunities available to outdoorsmen and women. Having that time together is an excellent way to enjoy nature, build relationships, and more. It’s part of hunting’s storied tradition, and rich heritage.
With large groups of hunters comes increased demands on good communication, both during the hunt season and in the off-season for general upkeep and food plot construction. HuntStand was built to handle it all.
Regardless of who you hunt with, though, millions of hunters throughout the nation are part of hunt clubs and leases. It’s not always easy to navigate the terrain that comes with the territory, if you know what I mean. When groups are involved, things like efficiency, fairness, and safety are but a few important considerations that can pose challenges. Increasing the odds of an entire group of hunters finding success is difficult, too.
HuntStand makes it easy to see at a glance each hunt club stand or blind, as well as access trails and other important terrain features each member needs to know.
Simply, it’s important to have a system in place to help manage hunters at hunt clubs and leases. Fortunately, HuntStand Pro makes that job much easier and more effective. Here are 10 ways this powerful, many-featured app can help get you there.
Property Line Management
One of the most-important aspects of hunting any ground is being familiar with property boundaries. Trespassing is no small thing, especially in our modern world. It’s very important for hunters to know where boundary lines are.
All hunt club members should be on the same page when it comes to stand use and access, and HuntStand Pro has specific, helpful features to make it happen.
HuntStand Pro helps with that. Thanks to accurate property line and boundary markers, it’s easier for hunt club and lease members to stay on their side of the fence. By using the “Property Info” app layer, you can instantly see the lines separating your ground from the neighbor’s.
Mapping Property Attributes
Those who share access might not always do the work. In fact, in this regard, it’s best that all group members share the load. Hunters who do not know where important property features are located can be a problem. Everyone should know the exact locations of things like treestands, ground blinds, trail cameras, food plots, mineral licks, feeders, and more. By marking these on a shared HuntStand Hunt Area map, everyone will know the locations of all-important gear items, and also, other important locales such as known hazards.
HuntStand offers icons to mark up your hunt club maps so all members not only know the location of stands and blinds, but also things like trail cameras, hot scrapes, water sources and more that can impact and influence stand selection.
As we all know, access is important, too. If you spook deer while walking in or out, it can have negative effects on an entire area. HuntStand also makes it possible to chart the optimal wind directions, parking areas, and entry and exit routes to existing treestands and blinds. Following these guidelines can help members preserve the quality of the hunt club or lease.
When all members have access to the same Hunt Area map complete with detailed stand and deer sign icons, the group enters a new level of hunting efficiency.
Detailing Necessary Tasks
Every hunting property has a list of things that need to be done, especially prior to hunting season. However, if things aren’t recorded or scheduled, we tend to forget about them. Making note of necessary tasks helps prevent that, and HuntStand shows the way.
HuntStand offers multiple ways to add detailed notes, including to-do tasks, to hunt areas using icons. Share the Hunt Area and everyone has access.
By using HuntStand’s “Tasks” feature, groups can keep track of what needs to be done, and what’s already been completed. Choose from a variety of classifications, including “Food Plot/Orchard Management,” “General Management,” Habitat/Property Management,” or “Stand/Blind Management.” You can even change the colors of the markers, assign a project a title, and leave very specific notes for each task. These are incredibly helpful features, and take hunt camp coordination to the next level.
Communicating Important Messages
Communication is key in every relationship—even those you have with fellow hunt club and lease members. Sharing necessary information is crucial to maintaining not only your hunting property, but also the trust and respect you have for each other. Being able to address important conversations and messages isn’t something to ignore.
Good communication is critical with any hunting club; HuntStand's Group Board feature offers an easy solution.
Fortunately, HuntStand helps with this, too. The “Group Board” is designed for ongoing communication efforts between hunting buddies and lease members. It allows you to post comments, which helps keep communications organized.
Listing Important Sightings
We all love to see and share tales of game encounters in the field. The sight of a mature buck, mouthy gobbler, or other target animal is part of the adventure. However, we often get caught up in the moment. Accurately recalling important aspects and details can be difficult. The excitement, and time itself, can muddy the waters.
Over time and with input from the entire group, HuntStand's game sightings feature helps show the most-productive areas of a property, and when they will likely be hot again.
That’s why it’s important to keep track of what you see with HuntStand’s “Sightings” feature. This allows you to drop pins of deer, turkeys, ducks, hogs, predators, and other game, big and small. You can assign each icon a title, which is perfect for those who like to name their target bucks. You can also list sighting notes. These can be significant when remembering the specific conditions (such as wind direction) under which a deer used a certain bedding area, food plot, trail, etc.
Over time, with help from all members, this feature also helps you to visualize what areas of a property are most productive. In an instant, you can see the sightings pins spread throughout your Hunt Group map, showing where club and lease members are encountering the most action.
Sharing Trail Camera Intel
I’ve lost more trail cameras than I care to admit, but that was before HuntStand Pro’s arrival. Being able to keep track of your gear is important, another area where HuntStand shines. When you set a camera, and log its location, recalling its whereabouts is no longer an issue.
When all hunt club members know who is hunting, and precisely when and where, that type of smooth-running efficiency often leads to increased success.
HuntStand Pro also helps process your trail camera photos. When uploaded from a desktop computer, it stores your trail camera images. With approximately 40 GB of storage, that’s a lot of target deer photos.
HuntStand Pro also offers automatic tagging, heat maps of activity, and aids in activity and movement prediction. This data processing is very beneficial for hunters who are patterning deer and looking for the highest odds of intercepting a specific buck.
Making Stand Reservations
One of the biggest challenges on a hunt club or lease is fairness. How do hunters determine where they get to hunt? HuntStand Pro’s “Stand Reservation” feature is the answer. It allows hunters to choose their spot in advance, and everyone in the group can see it happen. It’s a simple and effective first-come, first-serve system. Simply select a day, start time, and end time.
HuntStand Pro’s “Stand Reservation” feature is the answer to stand use fairness. It allows hunters to choose their spot in advance, and everyone in the group can see it happen.
As stated, group members can quickly check availability before choosing a spot to hunt. All will know which stands have been reserved, and which spots are still open. You can search by location, date, and time.
While fairness is important, safety is paramount. Using the reservation feature lets others know where you’ll be hunting. This is always good information to share, but especially when multiple people are on the property at the same time. When everyone uses this app feature properly, it decreases the risk of rudely interrupting someone else’s hunt. It also minimizes the odds of unfortunate hunting-related accidents.
Locating Your Hunting Buddies
While the ability to reserve stands is beneficial, so is using the real-time “Friend Locator,” which allows you and your hunting buddies to share your location while on the hunting property. This is important for several reasons.
Well-run hunt clubs offer the ability to share exciting solo experiences back at camp, enriching the total experience for all members. HuntStand Pro was built to help.
First, the friend locating feature is another way to refrain from messing up someone else’s hunt, or refrain from shooting in unsafe directions. It’s similar to stand reservations, but provides virtual real-time updates on where a hunter is located. This is great for when hunters are walking to and from a specific stand, and also, when stalking or still-hunting, blood trailing, moving to new locations, and more.
Secondly, when going hunting, it’s always good practice to share your location with loved ones. That way, if an accident does occur, they’ll know where you are. This increases the odds of rescuers locating you, and finding you faster, in the event of a medical emergency.
Recording Harvest Data
Telling the story of a hunt is part of the attraction, and tradition. We always enjoy sharing the stories of our successes, and hearing those of others. HuntStand’s “Harvests” tab helps keep everything accurate. This app feature allows users to mark exactly where they shot, and/or recovered an animal. It also provides the ability to type detailed notes about the event.
Similarly to the sightings tab, recording harvest data helps you learn more about the club land or lease. Over time, this shows you which spots are most productive, or at least those that get hunted most often. In time you might be able to determine popular escape routes, or preferred security cover. This is valuable long-term information.
Boosting Safety
While often labeled as unsafe, hunting is certainly safe when enjoyed by those who follow some basic rules. When hunters follow best practices, implement safety precautions, use their heads, have respect for themselves, and are considerate of others, something wonderful happens. Then, the likelihood of an accident, negative experience, or bad outcome decreases dramatically.
Safety rules. HuntStand Pro's stand reservation and group communication abilities let all club members know when, where and what type of hunting is taking place.
One huge advantage of HuntStand Pro is that, over time, logging game sightings and harvests complete with weather conditions, helps all hunt club members see more success in future hunts.
HuntStand Pro helps with this, too, thanks to its many features. Using HuntStand properly, and regularly, can boost overall safety before, during, and after the hunt. HuntStand Pro not only increases the efficiency of a hunt club or lease, but also the safety of its members. Managing multiple hunters on a given hunting property suddenly becomes more streamlined and efficient.
Make It More With Pro
I’ve been a member of numerous hunt clubs. I’ve also shared several different hunting leases for many years. Through it all I’ve found them some of the most-enjoyable aspects of hunting. And especially, when members cherish the entire experience, value quality camaraderie, and work together to elevate one another.
When arrows fly and shots are fired, there's nothing like being able to show fellow hunt club members exactly where the encounter took place. With HuntStand Pro's group mapping and communication abilities, tracking and dragging help are a few clicks away.
As a HuntStand Pro ambassador, I actively use each of its beneficial features. But I did so long before I joined the team. HuntStand Pro has been in my hunting tool arsenal for a long time, and continues to positively impact my hunts each year. And I’m not alone. Today, approximately 6 million hunters have created 4 million HuntStand Hunt Areas, and dropped some 22 million markers. That’s proof enough that hunters everywhere are benefitting from HuntStand Pro’s many features, and I highly recommend that you use it this season to help manage hunters at your hunt club or lease. Rest assured, we’ll be leaning heavily on HuntStand Pro this fall to help run things smoothly at mine.
