new tool for hunting in MN

[Scoot]

piker, I think so. Contact the maker and he'll get you the right answers.

[harvey lee]

Yes, I use it in my H20. Nice chips.

[NorthernOutdoors]

Does this work in a Garmin Rino 120, and if not, which Garmin models will it work in? Thanks

[Scoot]

Northern, I'm pretty sure it will. That model isn't too old and it basically works with anything that's not very old. Again, to be sure contact the guy who makes it through his website. He's a nice guy and he'll take care of you.

[pulleye16]

Scoot, are you sure you have nothing to benefit from this product? You seem to know too much...LOL. Does this chip show land topography?

[S.D. Ice Angular]

I just ordered MNTRAX for the only purpose of hunting.

I don't really care about the lakes I have a LM and NAV chip allready.

I will post my review when I get a chance to use it.

[Kirsch]

Northern Outdoors, I believe I spoke to you in email but it can load to a Rino 120 but the 120 does not accept a memory card and only has 8MB of memory. The Minneosta map takes roughly 30MB and you can load up any layer you wish such as Land, Lakes, Roads, etc but 8 MB isn't going to be enough.

Pulleye, Scoot has nothing to gain as he is simply a good devoted customer as many of my customers are. If you are referring to elevation topography, the answer is no. I have it but as I spoke with the majority of outdoorsman and showed them the product and also showed samples when it included elevation topography, most didn't like the idea of topo lines getting in the way of the lands, roads, trails and everything else they wanted to see. I am not counting it out for a future release but for now it shows the land types, borders, section lines, township-range-section numbers and a whole lot more.

I am the owner of Kirsch's Outdoor Products and the creator of NDTRAX, MNTRAX, MTTRAX, and WYTRAX, so if you have any questions feel free to ask. Scoot and others thanks for answering so many questions in my absence.

[pulleye16]

Just givin scoot a hard time...sounds like a good product. Let me know if you ever get elevation topography, would love it as I try to mark ridges, scrapes, trails ect. on my gps and love having the refrence of topography to place stands. Thanks for the info!

[BucksnDucks]

The way im reading the info from the website, is that it doesnt not contain tax-forfeited lands, such as the case in Crow Wing, Aitkin counties for example. Great tool most likely but for my case, the old reliable paper plat book still is a better tool.

[Kirsch]

BucksnDucks, you are correct it doesn't include this yet, but for the MN2010, a highly requested feature so if it is available in GIS format, I will include it. Also, the PLAT book is great and MNTRAX will provide you the information of township, range and section number to coorelate with the PLAT book.

The most difficult thing with any paper map is to know your precise location in relation to the map, where boundaries are, etc.

[BucksnDucks]

Agreed! Looking forward to seeing what 2010 will bring, count me in as a customer if it does!

[Kirsch]

BucksnDucks and all, I did find a source for the tax forfeit land in Minnesota. The newest available is from Nov 2008, but hopefully this stays static long enough to help.

I am putting out a new update during the next few weeks for MNTRAX. The version number will be 2.4. You can watch the website for Kirsch's Outdoor Products under News for when it releases. For existing customers, they can send me their MNTRAX 2009 version for Free updating until MNTRAX 2010 comes out, and for new customers, they will get the newer version automatically.

This update will include:

1) Increase of road data by approx. 30% (especially forest)

2) Addition of walking hunting trails

3) Addition of tax - forfeit land

4) Additional state managed land

I could have waited until MNTRAX 2010 but wanted to make sure all of you had the latest and greatest in the field.

[BLACKJACK]

kirsch, will the chip fit into my Lowrance XOG?? I notice your website doesn't give the option of selecting an SD card, so I 'assume' that it defaults to the SD card format??!

Also, are ALL Minnesota Waterfowl Production Areas on the chip?? One of my disapointments with the 2008 Lakemaster chip has been the fact that it has Wildlife Management Areas on it but not WPA's.

[Kirsch]

BlackJack,

Yes MNTRAX works in virtually every Lowrance accept for the new Endura series which no one has maps that work with it yet. MNTRAX does have WPAs and much more. I have included some of the many features of MNTRAX below. I also offer a money-back guarantee if you are not satified. Just one note, on the XOG, Lowrance messed up on the National Forest as they don't cut out the private land inside the forest areas, so turn off your national forest category and just use the forests as part of MNTRAX.

Features Include:

Lake Outlines including Depth Contours: 1100+

Boat Ramps

Scientific and Natural Areas (SNA)

Wildlife Management Areas (WMA)

National Wildlife Refuges (NWR)

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

Waterfowl Production Areas (WPA)

State Management Program

Tax Forfeit Land

Hunting trails

State Parks

State Forests

National Forests

Big Game Units

Hiking Trails

Cities

US & State Highways

County & City Roads

Forest Roads

PLSS Sections

Township, Range, & Section #

Let me know if you have any additional questions. Yes, my product actually comes as microSD card with SD adapter for Garmin and Lowrance. Different Garmin GPS units use different card sizes but all Lowrance with the exception of the Endura uses SD/MMC. Have a great hunting season.

[BLACKJACK]

Kirsch, I ordered it Friday, looking forward to the maps of the WPA's, looking to do a lot of late season pheasant hunting.

Kind of curious to see how the different map card works with my saved waypoints. Should be fine since they go off of latitude and longitude, and the cards are write protected, so the info has to be in the GPS.

Also kind of curious to see if the lake map detail contours are any different...

Thanks!

[RBuker]

Maybe I missed it as I scanned this thread rather quickly. But, when is the 2010 coming out? I am going to get one butneed the tax lands.

Thanks

[Kirsch]

If you order from the Outdoor Store, this is a direct shipment by Kirsch's Outdoor Products so you will get the latest version which includes the tax forfeit lands. Tax forfeit was going to be a feature add for MNTRAX 2010 but since this was a highly requested feature, I added it to MNTRAX 2009 and also re-did the road database, added additional hunting trails and more.

The release date for MNTRAX 2010 will probably be March timeframe so I would recommend buying MNTRAX 2009 now to catch a good part of the hunting season.

Updates are planned for $20 and can be done each year or whenever you wish. There is no requirement but it is highly recommended.

[RBuker]

Thanks for the info.

Randy

[Realtor Boy]

I purchased mine about a month ago and have been playing around with it for the last few weeks. I have not seen anything indicating that there is tax forefited land markings anywhere. Also I know of a few larger state forests that I hunt near Hillman that are not on the maps, this was the main reason I purchased the card.. All in all it looks like it should work good, I love that it has the land plus the lakes..

[Kirsch]

Realtor Boy,

As mentioned in my thread on 11/16, if someone ordered after that date, they would get the tax forfeit land, so your product did not have tax forfeit land, but I do update for free.

I spent a ton of time adding tax forfeit land per the request of many on FishingMinnesota. Now, I may have to pull it or look at it all over. The issue is this is mostly all county land and some counties do a good job and some may never update the GIS files for the DNR. I put out the update, and received an email the next day that a person went to a county tax forfeit land (and it was tax forfeit at one time) and there was a million dollar new construction home sitting there. They sent me the GPS coordinate and I verified via satellite data, they are right. It is hard to hunt in someone's back yard. I have received some additional feedback since then as well. So, I have a delimna as there is not any type of state mandate that the counties have to keep this data up to date (at least not all in one place or in any type of GIS format). I am looking for sportsman feedback, so would really appreciate your feedback as well as other's if I should pull it all or put a massive disclaimer on it saying sorry it could be out of date as I have no control over what the counties do and don't do. All data is subject to change but tax forfeit seems very much this way.

I am going back to the data one last time to see if there is anyway for me to cross-reference this or keep it more isolated to forest land which has a lesser chance of being sold back to the public.

I will also check on that forest area for you. I have added some additional forst areas as well. Also, checking if it was county or state forest land as I do have some county forest areas, I may add.

[Dbl]

I ordered mine this weekend, can't wait to try it out.

[Kirsch]

Realtor,

Please send me your email address to [email protected]. I have a screen shot of the area you are referring to near Hillman and I want your opinion, if a change I have will correspond to what you are expecting. The image is too large to put here. Thank you.

[RBuker]

I'd go with the disclaimer and keep the county land on it. There's so much of it in certain areas of the state that having on your chip is hugely important. I think that because of it's changing nature, you do the best you can. It is always the sportsman's responsibility to know where he's hunting. Each person should buy or consult a new plat map if planning to hunt a certain area. Or just go by postings and home. Obviously if there's a house sitting where you want your bear bait, go elsewhere.

My two cents. And, I'd best hurry and get mine ordered while the county land is still on there!!!

[Realtor Boy]

Realtor,

Please send me your email address to [email protected]. I have a screen shot of the area you are referring to near Hillman and I want your opinion, if a change I have will correspond to what you are expecting. The image is too large to put here. Thank you.

Hello kirsch... Email sent!

[Kirsch]

Realtor, thanks for confirming the data matches the area with the recent changes. I just wanted to post an update. I spent the last couple of days pulling up known maps which have this type of data, used information from hunters such as Realtor, and compiled a list of State land, DNR, and county tax forfeit that should be very helpful and less prone to issues.

What I ended up having to do is the way the data is mapped, everything is to the 40 acre level. I was able isolate records that indicated they were not 40 acres and/or were not 100% owned by the State/County. This allowed me to filter out some of the most questionable records. We still are left with counties not keeping data potentially updated, but at least I found a way to get a lot of the problemmatic records off the map to start with the most data possible.

I picked 50+ spots in Becker County as they have an online map and they were all correct, so I am feeling more confident in the Tax forfeit land. WPA, WMA, and many of the others have been solid all along. I did the same thing to the State Forest land as well.

Thanks for all the input and will continue

[RBuker]

I ordered mine on Monday and had it in my hands by noon on Wednesday. I'm eager to get home with it and see how it looks. But, I'm impressed with the speed at which you got it to me.

Thank you.

[Realtor Boy]

Kirsch,

I just received mine in the mail and will be bringing it with me for this wknd's muzzy hunt. Thanks for getting that updated and sent back to me so fast. For those of you who do not have one of these it is a great product and also a GREAT company to do business with!

[duckster]

Sounds like a great tool but remember there are limitations as far as knowing "exactly whose land you are on" using GPS. I use it routinely for work in northern MN and have noticed that it can be off as much as a few hundred feet from the survey markers. Since the survey markers are the legal standard the GPS is "wrong". That means using a GPS alone you could easily wander onto private or closed area and think you were legal.

GPS is a great tool but I still am a firm believer in using a map and compass with it.

-Duckster

[Kirsch]

Duckster,

You are exactly right as this is a tool like anything else is and it has to be used with common sense. If the map is showing a property border is 20 feet past a fence line, it is highly unlikely, the property really extends just a bit past a fenceline as an example.

Commmercial GPS units are typically + or - 40 feet as a rule anyway, so there is always this factor to consider. Plus, as you are saying, there is always the potential of a margin of error on every map. It is a guide and it will help the majority of sportsman be able to help be as good of land stewards as possible.

Give 1 sportsman a paper map and compass and the other a GPS with the same data. For the majority of sporstman, which do you think will have a better chance of knowing where a property begins and ends? Trying to figure out a property line on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and a compass is no easy task. It is always nice to have a compass and paper map as well in the event the GPS batteries die or you wish to have another view of the same area. Both are good and both are useful tools.

I know this product has changed the way I hunt and fish for the better. Many other sporstman are finding the idea of having their hunting, fishing, and road maps all on one card right on their GPS as an incredible help in the outdoors as well. Thanks for your response.

[Islandlaker]

I just got a GPS thanksgiving night at gander and have been playing around with it a bit, and I think your product would be great. I have the etrex summit HC by garmin, I don't so a SD slot though on it anywhere. WIll your product work with my GPS?