Hunting Apps and E-Scouting: Find Deer and Elk from Home

A hunter who e-scouts well can cover 100 square miles of terrain on a Tuesday afternoon that would take a week of hard hiking to cover on foot. That’s not an exaggeration — it’s the real gap that modern mapping tools have created between hunters who use them and hunters who don’t. If you’re still relying entirely on boots-on-the-ground scouting before your season, you’re spending time you don’t need to spend.

This guide breaks down exactly how we use OnX Hunt, BaseMap, and Google Earth Pro to build a picture of an area before we ever load the truck.

Why E-Scouting Changed Everything

Ten years ago, scouting was simple: you drove roads, glassed ridges, checked for tracks and rubs, and tried to put together a mental picture of where animals were living. That still works. But it takes days, it burns vacation time, and it spooks deer and elk in areas where pressure is already high.

E-scouting doesn’t replace boots — nothing does. But it does let us eliminate 80% of mediocre country before we ever set foot in it, and it lets us walk into a new unit with a shortlist of specific spots already identified. We know which saddle we want to glass from, which bench might hold bedded elk in the afternoon, and which creek crossing has the most natural traffic flow. That’s not guesswork — it comes from reading the map well.

OnX Hunt: The Foundation Layer

OnX Hunt is the gold standard for public/private land boundaries, and for most hunters, it’s the first subscription worth buying. At $30/year for a single-state hunt membership and roughly $100/year for all states, it’s one of the cheapest investments in your hunting success.

What makes OnX worth it:

Property lines and landowner names. You can tap any parcel and see who owns it, which is critical for knocking on doors or identifying buffer zones around public land that gets hammered by other hunters.

Public land shading. National Forest, BLM, state wildlife management areas, walk-in hunting areas — all color-coded and layered directly on topo. You can see exactly where you transition from public to private in terrain that would be impossible to judge otherwise.

Offline maps. Download a county or unit before you leave home and you have full functionality without cell service. This matters more than anything else when you’re actually in the field.

Waypoint and track system. Drop pins on every interesting topo feature during your e-scouting session, categorize them, and share them between your phone and the OnX web app. We keep a running list of “investigate this” pins for every unit we hunt.

The OnX layers we stack most often: aerial imagery base, topo overlay at medium opacity, public land shading, and property lines. Once those are on, you can read the landscape clearly.

BaseMap: The Serious Alternative

BaseMap competes directly with OnX, and some hunters genuinely prefer it. The 3D terrain view is a standout feature — you can tilt the map and look at a ridge like you’re flying over it, which helps identify subtle terrain features that are harder to read on a flat topo view.

BaseMap’s interface feels more modern to some users, and it has solid offline capability. We recommend downloading both during a free trial period and running them side by side on a unit you know well. The one that feels more intuitive to you will serve you better when you’re tired and it’s dark and you need to figure out where you are.

Google Earth Pro: The Historical Intelligence Tool

Google Earth Pro is free, and its killer feature is historical satellite imagery. Most hunters don’t use it. That’s a mistake.

Here’s what historical imagery lets us do:

Find old orchards. An apple orchard that got overgrown and forgotten 15 years ago won’t show up on any land management map, but it will show up in Google Earth imagery from 2008. Old orchards are consistent, predictable deer food sources year after year.

Track logging and regrowth. A clearcut from three years ago might be shoulder-high young growth right now — a feeding and bedding magnet. Google Earth lets you see exactly when it was cut and how far along the regrowth is.

Identify water sources. Beaver ponds that dried up, stock tanks that appear in dry years, seeps and springs that show green in July imagery — water drives deer and elk movement in the West, and historical imagery shows you the full picture.

Find old homestead clearings. Abandoned agricultural clearings that have partially grown back create exactly the kind of edge cover that holds deer. These spots are nearly impossible to identify without historical imagery.

To access it: open Google Earth Pro (desktop), click the clock icon in the toolbar to pull up the historical imagery slider, and drag it back through years of imagery for any location you’re studying.

Reading Topo: The Features That Matter

Once you have your mapping app open, knowing what to look for is everything. These are the terrain features we target first:

Saddles. Where two ridges dip and meet forms an X-shaped low point. Deer and elk use saddles to cross between drainages without exposing themselves on ridgetops. If the saddle connects bedding on one side to feeding on the other, it’s worth a sit.

Benches. A flat shelf halfway up a slope breaks up the verticality of a mountain. Elk especially like to bed on benches — they’re protected below, have visibility above, and the thermals are predictable. Look for the topo lines spreading out mid-slope.

Points. A ridge that extends out into a valley creates a natural funnel at its tip. Deer traveling parallel to a ridge will often follow the contour around the end of a point, making it a repeatable pinch for stand placement.

Creek crossings. Anywhere two drainages converge, or where a creek narrows between topographic obstacles, deer will use that crossing consistently. Find them on the map, mark them, verify them on foot.

Reading Satellite Color for Habitat

The satellite imagery tells you more than the topo if you learn to read the color patterns:

• Dark green, dense canopy: Mature timber. High-value bedding cover, especially for elk, and good thermal regulation. Also harder to see into and hunt — worth noting.
• Lighter green, irregular texture: Young growth, clearcuts in early regrowth, or mixed brush. This is transition habitat — feeding and edge cover. Deer work these areas heavily, especially at first and last light.
• Tan, brown, or pale open areas: Agricultural fields, dry openings, or meadows. Major food sources in season. Also high pressure if they’re visible from roads.
• Dark linear cuts through green: Logging roads and skid trails. Mark these as pressure indicators — more road access means more hunters.

Identifying Hunting Pressure Remotely

High-pressure public land produces pressured deer. Before we commit to an area, we look for pressure indicators from the map:

Parking pullouts and trailheads. Easily visible on satellite imagery as packed dirt areas near road ends. Multiple pullouts near a unit boundary means multiple hunters entering.

Road density. More roads, more access, more pressure. We actively look for road-less blocks — areas where topography or land ownership creates natural barriers to casual access.

Trail networks. Well-worn trail systems from recreation use (hiking, mountain biking) mean unpredictable human traffic throughout the season. Avoid hunting tight to recreational trail systems if you can.

The general rule: the further from pavement, the less pressure. E-scouting lets us find the terrain that’s worth the extra miles before we commit to them.

When E-Scouting Fails You

E-scouting has real limits. Dense canopy — old-growth fir, thick spruce-fir stands — hides terrain features that don’t show clearly on imagery. A bench or water source buried under a closed canopy won’t reveal itself until you’re standing on it.

Maps also lag behind reality. Recent logging, new roads, development, or drought that changed a water source won’t always be reflected in your app. We’ve walked into areas expecting mature timber and found a fresh clearcut that wasn’t on any map.

The rule we follow: e-scouting builds the list, boots verify it. Use the map to narrow from 100 square miles to five specific spots worth investigating. Then go walk those five spots. You’ll cover the ground faster, with better focus, and you won’t waste days on mediocre country.

FAQ

Do I need both OnX and BaseMap, or just one? Most hunters do fine with one. Start with OnX for its public/private boundary data — it’s the most comprehensive. Try BaseMap during a free trial and switch if the interface works better for you. Running both long-term is redundant.

Is Google Earth Pro really free? Yes. Google made it free to download and use in 2015. The Pro version (with historical imagery and higher resolution) is available at no cost at earth.google.com. The historical imagery slider is under View > Historical Imagery.

How far back does Google Earth historical imagery go? Varies by location, but many areas have imagery back to the mid-1990s. More developed or frequently imaged areas often have annual snapshots. Rural hunting areas typically have coverage back to 2004–2008.

Can I use these apps while hunting with no cell service? Yes, if you download offline maps before you leave home. OnX and BaseMap both support offline map downloads. Always download the area before you’re in the field — don’t count on cellular service in remote terrain.

What’s the best way to organize waypoints across multiple units? OnX lets you create custom layers and color-code pins. We use separate layers for each unit and categories like “Saddles,” “Water,” “Bedding Candidates,” and “Access Points.” This keeps multiple units organized and easy to navigate in the field.

How do I find historical imagery of a specific area in Google Earth? Open Google Earth Pro on desktop, navigate to your location, then click the clock icon in the toolbar at the top. A slider will appear showing available imagery dates. Drag left to go back in time.

Does e-scouting work for whitetails the same way it does for elk? The same tools apply, but the scale is different. Whitetail e-scouting focuses on micro-terrain — individual funnels, food source edges, creek crossings within a woodlot. Elk e-scouting typically covers larger terrain blocks and elevation transitions. Both benefit from the same approach: use the map to build a shortlist, then verify on foot.