Arizona Hunting Club & Outdoor Adventure Group

Learning How to Hunt with Topographic Maps

All hunters should start planning their hunting trips several months before the season opens, especially if you are a bow hunter. Unlike rifle hunters that are mobile and can make shots at 300-400 yards, a bow hunter usually hunts from a tree stand and needs to be within 50 yards of a game trail or a stock tank to prepare for a good shot.

The only way to get that close to a bull elk or a nice trophy buck is learn where they like to eat, drink and sleep.

Sounds simple, but when you drive to the end of a dirt road, park your truck and walk around in the woods for a couple of hours and then wonder why you didn't see anything and you'll begin to realize that it takes a little effort.

Your choices are simple. You can walk around all day and hope you stumble on some areas that hold some animals by accident or you can use a topographic map to mark out the exact GPS coordinates of where water, food and shelter can be found in close proximity to each other.

Not only will topographic maps show you where stock tanks, grassy pastures and hillside benches are located, but more importantly, they will show you the terrain obstacles that lie between each of these resources, which will cause animals follow take certain predictable routes on a regular basis.

Animals always follow the game trails that offer the path of least resistence and the best security cover to obscure their movements during daylight hours.

If you can learn to locate these features on a topographic map; program the coordinates into a GPS unit; and use this knowledge to explore the areas that you think will hold deer and elk, your hunting success rate will go up 1000%.

Even if the areas you have marked as waypoints to scout don't produce the results you want, you are bound to come across fresh tracks at 3 out of 10 stock tanks. From there you can follow game trails that will take you closer and closer to where the animals are feeding and bedding.

1. Learn how to identify the following landmarks:
• Stock Tanks
• Ridges
• Ridge End Points
• Game Trail Hubs
• Saddles and Dips in the Ridge
• Hillside Benches
• Forest/Pastures/Burn Breaklines
• Field Saddles/Creek Beds
• Hilltop Field Funnels
• Forest Inside and Double Inside Corners
• Natural Funnels/Chokepoints
2. Learn to connect the dots between these landmarks in order to predict what path deer and elk will take most of the time due to the path of least resistance and and the best possible cover.
3. Learn how to locate the GPS coordinates of these landmarks and program them into a handheld GPS unit for scouting trips. Don't have topographic software? The links below will give you the exact GPS coordinates of every water source in Arizona:
• Stock Tanks
• Springs
• Seeps
• Ridges
• Springs
• Swamps
• Riparian Areas
• Heaviest Concentration of Animals
• GPS Coordinates of Every 6x6 or better elk in Arizona
4. Learn where animals will be during certain times of the day
5. Learn to use your GPS unit to find these areas and what you should be scouting for once you get there:
• What to Scout for Around Watering Holes
• What to Scout for Around Feeding Areas
• What to Scout for on Game Trails
• What to Scout for Around Bedding Areas

When combined, our seasoned hunting club members can account for more than 2,000 years of hunting knowledge and experience that we would be more than happy to pass onto to you.

If you have any questions regarding the content or strategies outlined on this page, please post them so that we can further explain complex topics that need additional clarification.

In the hunting world, there is no such thing as a dumb question.