“There’s an app for that.” That’s the common phrase heard between smartphone users when searching for mobile apps to help with everyday tasks. Even outdoor enthusiasts have apps to help them before, during and after hunts. To make things easy on you, we’ve put together a top five must have apps for sportsmen and women.
1. ISolunar Hunting & Fishing Times
This offers numerous features and is an all-around app for sportsmen. ISolunar offers users GPS location maps to track not only your current location, but allows you to save your favorite hunting spots to reference for the future. For a small fee, the app allows you to upgrade for custom maps to mark locations of your blinds, feeders, trail cameras and more! And it gets better. ISolunar offers solunar times to let you know when the best hunting and fishing times will be. It also has a solunar calendar function to let you see the data for dates in the future to plan your optimal hunting or fishing trip. Weather forecasts can also be found in the app, as well as a “trophy room” to save pictures and data from your day in the field. ISolunar can be purchased for $4.99.
2. Hunting Journal
This app from ProHuntersJournal.com is a great tool for sportsmen to keep track of key details from your time in the field. Ever wish you had a pen to write down exactly where you saw tracks of that whitetail buck? Now it is easier than ever with the Hunting Journal. The app allows you to record locations of animals sighted, tracks, rubs, scrapes, bedding areas and more! Recording field notes such as scouting data, date, time, temperature, weather, ect. has never been so easy. Not only can you take notes to look back on, but the app also has a GPS mapping feature for you to view and save your current position. You can also view the peak hunting activity periods by using the apps solunar tables. Hunting Journal offers a free version, or upgrade to the Pro for only $3.99.
3. Mossy Oak Weather App
This app is not just your average weather app. Instead it focuses on not only weather patterns, but wind activity, solunar times, hourly barometric changes, lunar phases and more! All very important information that could make or break your time in the field. You can save your favorite hunting location in the app to get up to the minute details on the weather activity in that area. This great tool offers ScentCone and SetZone, first of its kind features that deliver visually mapped wind speed and directions for your tree stands and blinds up to the hour for 72 hours. The best part…it’s free!
4. GoPro App
Although not specifically for sportsmen, this app is designed for GoPro enthusiasts who love to capture their hunts using their GoPro camera. The app makes it easy to control your camera and lets you share your photos and videos instantly – bragging rights at the tip of your fingers! The GoPro App allows you to have full control of your cameras functions, including the record and the shutter button, and also changing the cameras settings. You can now preview what you are shooting through your app to make sure you are capturing exactly what you want, and you can play back your recently taken photos or videos. Got the perfect shot of your successful turkey hunt? You can instantly save it to your phone and share via social media, email or text! Running out of room on your SD card? No problem. You can browse and delete files from the cameras microSD card. This is a must have app for all GoPro enthusiasts.
5. SAS Survival
Basically the very informative SAS Survival Guide which offers world-class survival skills is now available at your fingertips! This app brings you the full text of the bestselling book to your phone, offering over 400 pages of information. The app offers photo galleries of animal tracks, edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, essential knots, and snake and sea creature identification. It also offers text on how to survive in extreme climates including polar, desert, tropical and sea. A sun compass is available, along with a Morse Code signaling device. The SAS Survival app also offers a compressive first aid section. A very interesting read, this app offers you a chance to study important information on the go that could save your life in the field for only $5.99.
By: Kali Parmley, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance
