This originally appeared in the April/May 2024 edition of the NZ Hunter magazine

A Better Hunting guide to reading, understanding and using maps.

Most hunters and outdoors people have basic map skills. But there’s so much depth we can add to our hunting through closer inspection of what a map is telling us.

There are three main aspects of map use that assist our hunting:

  • Navigation
  • Communicating locations
  • Providing us clues as to where animals may be

Better Hunting’s ‘Using Maps’ module primarily looks at 1 and 2. For more on 3 have a look at the ‘How to hunt’ module.

Navigation – doing your homework

While following a track is pretty straightforward, we’re not permitted to hunt from tracks on public conservation land (PCL), and tracks are simply not where animals are most likely to be. Getting comfortable with navigating off-track is therefore essential to becoming a safe and successful hunter, and good map reading is critical to this.

A good hunter keeps their eyes and ears alert. Re-focusing to check your smartphone or map every ten steps is not a satisfying or effective way to hunt. To free yourself of this it is a good idea to do your homework and study the map before you head into the hills.

Identify prospective handrails

Handrails are land features you can use to guide your route. In New Zealand these are generally streams, spurs, ridges, fence lines, tracks and roads. We strongly encourage you to study prospective handrails while you are getting ready for your hunt, donning your blaze and putting cartridges in your magazine. It may feel cheesy initially but it’s a good thing to do with any mates you are hunting with too, as this will significantly help your navigation and communication.

If you know your handrails, you can stay aware of the area you are in without constantly referring to your map. This means you can keep your mind on the task of hunting.

Sample basic handrails; major creeks bordering hunting area provide ‘sides’, and main creek provides exit.

Estimating travel times

Correctly estimating off track travel times is not easy, but it can really help with your hunt planning. The side benefit of estimating travel timing is that it helps you focus attention on every little map feature. Even if your estimates are initially not that accurate, you really get familiar with the landscape you’re visiting, and that helps speed good decision making in the field.

To estimate travel times, general walking speed estimates are:

  • A road or great-walk quality track: 4km/per hour
  • A normal track: 2km/per hour
  • Off track: 0.5-1km/per hour

Not all off-track travel is equal, of course. You might do 2km/per hour in open beech forest, but in thick vegetation it’ll be more like 0.5 or 1km. If you’re hunting while you move, it’s obviously different again depending on how you are hunting.

Ascents and descents add some time. Add about four minutes per steep contour line and adjust for your fitness and confidence.

To apply these rules to a map, use the Topo50 gridlines. Each gridline square has a distance of 1km (1.4km diagonally). Adjust for the contours and the bush type and you’ll have something to go on.

Sample timing estimates; track and off-track timing dependent on bush cover.

Envisage the sun and wind movement

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Once you’re familiar with the map of your hunting area, take a moment to think where the sun will be at different times of the day. You can then incorporate that into your hunt planning. This is particularly useful in winter when the sun is lower and the days shorter.

The sun also impacts dryness and bush cover. Somewhat counter-intuitively, less sunny (south-facing) areas often have larger trees and easier walking options; and in summer can make for cooler travel. Heat and cold have their impact on wind movement too, but that’s a lesson for another day.

Communicating (with coordinates)

The other useful thing we’ll look at here is using maps to communicate.

Digital maps are great, and if you don’t already have an offline topographic map app on your phone you really should get one – even just as a backup. One thing digital maps are yet to do effectively, however, is share locations with others.

Being able to share and find map coordinates is a fantastic skill. Here’s some examples of when you might want to share coordinates:

  • Sharing trip intentions in a hut book or in hunting camp notes
  • Writing/sharing locations of sign, wallows, heads, campsites, rock bivouacs, open slips, shooting rests etc
  • Communicating specific positions over phone or radio
  • Finding specific locations from coordinates shared online or in books and other resources.
  • The most common way to share coordinates (in the manual world) is with grid references.

To find a grid reference:

  1. Go across your grid lines to the one closest on the left of your point, (e.g. 81)
  2. Mentally split the box in 10 and put the box number you’re in next. (e.g. if your point is 30% in from the left of the box, we’d go 813)
  3. Do the same from the bottom going upward (e.g. 43, 434).

Along with your map code (e.g. BP33), this provides a grid reference. If you wrote BP33 813 434, anyone anywhere in NZ would be able to find that location.

You can get more accurate with more ‘splits of 10’, (e.g. BP33 8138 4342).

Grid reference training in the ‘Using maps’ module of Better Hunting.

Geographical coordinates – latitude and longitude

Geographic coordinates are your classic international latitude and longitude (lat/lon). They are measured in degrees, minutes and seconds; or more easily, just two numbers.

-42.812125, 171.967507 is 42° 48′ 43.65” S 171° 58′ 3.0252” E.

The first one is a bit easier.

Latitude is the vertical number, plus or minus 90 from the equator. Longitude is the horizontal, going from -180 to +180 with 0 being Greenwich in London. Around New Zealand it’s all in the -40, 170 ballpark.

You can find latitude and longitude on a topographical map, but it’s a pain because the earth isn’t perfectly round and it’s a bit off from the map grid, which of course, is flat.  Honestly, it’s easier to leave latitude and longitude coordinates to GPS devices.

Grid coordinates – eastings and northings

Eastings and northings are grid coordinates; they’re mapped to the flat panel world of maps rather than the round world of the Earth. They’re great on maps and for use by us mere humans.

The following grid references all have eastings (horizontal, x) and northings (vertical, y) and can be found on a topographical map. These are all coordinates for Cone Hut in the Tararuas:

  • BP33 9726 5999 (NZGD2000)
  • 1797258E 5459992N (NZTM)
  • 1797258 mE 5459992 mN (NZTM)

Bringing it together

If you need to share a location, grid references may make more sense in some situations than lat and lon. It’s quite hard to use lat and lon without devices in the field, but grid references are easy to say, hear, write and find.

Topomap.co.nz can translate coordinates for you (under ‘more’ on the menu).
A smartphone app marker view. BQ27 is the Topo50 map, 45 and 23 is the grid box reference. The numbers after that are progressively more pin-point accurate to location – BQ27 453 239 would be typical.

 

Turning theory into practice

Studying maps can be good fun and many hunters become real ‘map geeks’. The more you study maps for your hunting areas, the more they can tell you. And with just a little coordinate competence you can communicate important map locations with others you may hunt with.  This theory stuff is great, but it’s hard to learn exclusively by just reading stuff; so, get hold of maps for your local hunting spots, get studying them and then head out and apply that knowledge in the field.

If you’d like more detail on using maps and other hunting-related skills, check out the Hunting Essentials programme at betterhunting.nz.