Don’t torch your spot

[MTGomer]

If you didn’t know, there are quite a few people, right or wrong, that scour the internet and try to figure out where others hunt. Then they actually go hunt there.

They do this with well known people like Randy, but they do it to anybody that is finding success. There’s just a certain number of people that will always take the easy way, and there’s a good number of people that are still quite ignorant to how effective digital scouting is.

Yesterday I saw a post on a page with over 100k followers of a guy posting the elk that him and his family killed. 5 bulls and a cow. He stated what mountain range he was in and then posted a couple scenery pics. This is an otc area of Montana.

I tried to politely warn him that his spot is going to get overran by people. He was dismissive of that, stating that nobody could figure it out because “there is thousands of acres.”

I found one spot half asleep with google earth on my phone last night and another in about 2 minutes on my computer this AM. I have no desire to hunt there, but you know dang well that there is a large contingent of dorks that can’t kill elk that are just looking for a freebee like this.

Think before posting

 

[Deleted member 20812]

I know that spot

 

[Nick87]

I don't even tell people or let landscape pics show where I am when I'm hunting private, some things are best kept to yourself.

 

[TheTone]

Only person that has ever blocked me on IG is a fit whitetail hunter that I asked to stop posting such obvious spots on an elk hunt. He had a video of himself getting his big dumb pickup stuck that was about 100 yards from where I had previously camped and another waterhole I could drop a pin on without ever physically being there. But why would he care about burning a spot, it’s all about content and sponsor money

 

[Nameless Range]

It's good advice.

Back in the day, a lot of internet sites didn't strip the exif data from photos, and you could literally see the coordinates of where a photo was taken by looking at its properties. Flickr and instagram were culprits.

I don't torch folks' spots in terms of going there, but I do enjoy the game of finding them from their photos. I believe we are approaching a time where this will become easier and easier with applications leveraging AI, that will look for things like vegetation, slope, angle of sun, topography, etc.

Some folks have a photographic memory. My 8th grade math teacher used to joke that he had a pornographic memory (thinking we didnt know what that meant). Other's have a geographic memory, and can really identify chunks of earth from a small visual sample of that place.

 

[brocksw]

I remember one time Randy torched one of my spots for me, on a live Q and A. Told the guy the name of the creek in that specific unit.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

Good advice. I know I have been guilty of this in the past.

 

[Irrelevant]

I tried really hard to not do this and @Schaaf still found me out.

The only caveat to this is WA, I only post epic landscape photos because there are never any deer to post about.

 

[Ben Lamb]

But how will people see my great sunrise photos?

 

[JDH]

I'm guilty of trying to figure it out a few times myself. I don't do it just to have a spot but normally for other reasons. I remember seeing a video of somebody stalking elk through tall junipers and thought it would be a cool hunt. Eventually I plan on helping my wife's uncle plan an elk hunt in WY so I worked to figure out where Randy took Larry thinking if he could get around then so could my wife's uncle.

 

[westbranch]

I have a pretty good memory for recognizing mountains/ridges and enjoy the game of matching up spots that I recognize. I am too stubborn to actually go hunt the spots if I hadn't found it before. Have seen pics posted or youtube videos and recognized the spot just from prior google earth scouting. Had a suggested youtube video recently and it was in the exact location where I was hunting in WY. Makes me dislike hunting media more and more.

 

[westbranch]

But how will people see my great sunrise photos?

For people like me that never fill tags I need some sort of picture to share. Nice landscape shot where we were deer hunting in CO last week:

 

[DouglasR]

I’ve been eyeing a couple of the heavy hitters spots over on rokslide.

 

[Jwill]

I listened to a podcast the recently and realized a spot I like is queued up to get burned, sucks...

I've had a buddy send me screen shots of places from Fresh Tracks that he found in Google Earth and planned to hunt. Was a hard to draw unit so not a big deal, but just shows how easy it is to find some of these places from pretty minimal info.

Not that I had anything of much value on there, but I'm glad photobucket melted down a few years back, probably covered some careless tracks on my part.

 

[DouglasR]

It’s gotta be lonely at the top.
When you’re so good at hunting that you can’t even post your pics on online internet hunting forums because copy cats will rip you off.

 

[Nameless Range]

Watch the speed with which this fellow works. He's looking at the world, and imagine someone at the very least knows which state you are hunting in. It's not exactly the same, but there are analagous clues one can hone in on.


And yes, I absolutely geek out on professional geoguesser videos regularly....

 

[Bambistew]

Sad world we live in.

 

[DouglasR]

There cumming for my spot Neff!!!

 

[MTGomer]

There cumming for my spot!!!

I’ll avoid thx

 

[westbranch]

I’ve been eyeing a couple of the heavy hitters spots over on rokslide.

I know some of the spots of a popular poster on rokslide. You should get an ID Panhandle A tag next year and try to get in on those honey holes in archery season. I had recognized ridgelines and zoomed in topo screenshots as I had been in the exact areas several times. I did not kill an elk and did not find sheds.