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Ya'll gonna love this! GREAT new app to use in the field

gitterdug

Member
Imagine if you will, driving down the road, and seeing an old abandoned homestead off the road, out in a pasture, in some woods, or perhaps on the other side of a barbed wire fence…….

Or searching a topo map and seeing an old home site you would like to visit…..

Or even being told, on the “Smith” property, there is supposed to be a buried fortune.

Some of us, if not most, have experienced this sort of incident at one time or another. And the factor, the one question that comes up is: I wonder who owns that property.

There are lots of ways to find out who owns the property. Knocking on the door. Going to the tax appraisal district (in person, or in many cases, online), ask neighbors, etc., but what do you do if you happen to be in the middle of the nowhere, and no houses are around the old homestead you have just discovered…..

I have found a new app for my Ipad that just might give a solution to that very sort of issue. It’s also available for the Droid phones and computers.

This app, called OnX Hunt is available at the Apple app store. You can also find out more at onXmaps.com. As a caveat, I am not informed as to coverage availability for all states. But I am confident that it is present for a lot of them.

The price is $34.95 for a one year subscription, per STATE in the Itunes Store, or $29.95 direct from the website.. On the one hand, that is pricey for an app. On the other hand, what a great tool to be able to determine an owner of a certain piece of property while stopped at the side of a road.

What you are buying, in essence, is the owner information of properties, presented in a graphical format, relative to your position. You can also look up an owner’s name for any property in the state.

Additionally, you get identification of Government owned land, as well as Private Parcels, and even hunt zones.

For Base Maps, you can see Aerial Imagery, USGS Topo, Imagery + Topo, Topo and Trails, Open Street Map, as well as ESRI files and a few others. You can draw lines, or polygons, points, text, photos, etc on the map as well.
Beyond the basemaps, there are additional layers, including: Hunt Zones, Private Parcels, Public Hunt Areas and Leases, Sections and Abstracts, and Government lands.
For areas where there is no reception for data, you can create offline caches of information. GPS positioning is still obtained and location is displayed.
You can email a screen shot to yourself or another via the net.

So, there you have it. When coupled with my Personalized Google maps of places to be searched, this is going to be a go to piece of equipment I will be using immediately. I am not well informed on the app yet, but I can see a place for it’s capabilities.

Here are some pics below of the maps, showing layers and base maps along with property owners of land. As you zoom in, it will pick up more data within a given layer.
Though this app is made for hunters, it is a tool worthy of our consideration.
I spoke to the company, and explained to them that the market for metal detectorist is a niche market they might consider developing their app’s capabilities for. Their response was that they had not thought of metal detectorists at all.
If you have an interest, contact them and let them know that historical topo maps would be valuable, expanded search capabilities, such as City of XXXXX, First Baptist Church of XXXXX, etc., as well as any other displays you might think of. If enough people speak up, this app could really be an asset to a detectorist. It would be great if when you searched it would put something where the target result is located……

So, I want to explain how I use this App.
I am at a location that I want to hunt with my detector. I start the app, and locate the owner’s name.
Next, if it is a commercial business, I google it. If not, I will look on Whitepages, or the local Tax Appraisal District, which is available online in Texas.
I can use many other sources, but once I find the contact info, I call them on my phone, or seek them out in person, and ask permission.
Being armed with a name, as well as the right attitude will land me permission to hunt. If they refuse, I simply go on down the road and find another site. This app works in the city, or the towns, or in the country here in Texas.
I just finished a trip to East Texas and stopped in several small towns and checked for information. Owner info was available at all locations. I also stopped in the country and checked. Same Result.
I think this is going to be one of my goto resources for hunting. Thanks for listening. If it helps you, great. I know I have already gained permission to hunt three old sites that I stumbled across. While I might have been able to gain the contact another way, this app saved me time, which in turn translated to time I was able to spend on site and digging.

Happy Hunting,
Dennis
 
This sounds like an awesome tool but how do I know if the area within the state I'm interested in is available before I spend $35 for the app?
 
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