New hunting DNR app available
For most hunters, the latest technology is not something to leave at home.
In fact, many hunters keep their smartphone in their hand, or at least at their side, when in the deer stand.
The reasons are many and varied, from the frivolous such as playing solitaire to the life-saving such as calling for help in an emergency.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources released a new smartphone app this fall called "Hunt Wild Wisconsin" that includes dozens of practical and important uses for hunters.
The app is an updated version of the Pocket Ranger product the DNR discontinued a couple years ago.
Hunt Wild Wisconsin includes just about all the information a hunter needs in the field or woods, said Scott Karel, DNR regulation policy specialist who helped develop the app.
Among its features are a full listing of hunting regulations, maps, GPS location and tracking, links to podcasts and harvest registration information.
The app is free and available for Apple or Android products.
Karel said the regulations are the most-viewed item on Hunt Wild Wisconsin.
"We've put every regulation and rule in there," Karel said. "It can free you up from taking a paper regs brochure out into the woods."
And even better, when a regulation gets changed, even perhaps after a season has started, the app automatically updates.
That isn't a hypothetical - it occurred in September when the ruffed grouse hunting season was shortened by a month.
One of the must useful items for hunters is the shooting hours feature. Since the app includes GPS, it tells you when legal hunting starts and ends for your location.
Karel said it helped him learn a spot he commonly hunts isn't where he thought it was.
He had been applying a "plus 4 minutes" to the time listed in a table in the regulations booklet. But based on the app, he learned he was actually plus 8.
A subsequent check with another GPS showed the app was correct.
The app can save maps and other features for use even in areas without a cellular signal.
And if you have GPS enabled, even without a cell signal, it can show your location on a map, a valuable feature for determining if you are on public or private property, for example.
The maps show boundaries of all publicly accessible land in the state, Karel said.
The app can be customized for species, including deer, turkey, bear and waterfowl.
And it can save waypoints and tracks.
Karel said the tracking feature, for example, can help users pick up the trail of a deer that had been shot the night before, or to help hunters find their way back out of the woods.
The app also has links to allow a hunter to check which licenses or permits they have as well as easily access the online or phone harvest registration systems.
If trends hold, the app is likely to become even more widely used in the future.
Karel said the app was downloaded about 53,000 times as of last week.
Outdoors