Hunting App - CalTopo

[mazzgolf]

<tl;dr>Who uses CapTopo? What are your thoughts?

I let my HuntStand subscription lapse - their recent major version update soured me on it.

I recently played with trial versions of OnX, HuntWise, and Spartan Forge to see which one I want to use now.

I finally settled on Spartan Forge - I think it is the best out of the four I tried (it is far from perfect though).

But then someone told me about CalTopo this week, so I got a free trial. Anyone use it?

I think it is very, very good. The UI isn't "pretty" like Spartan Forge, but the functionality is really good. There are some features in CalTopo that I could not find in any other app out there (like their "buffer" and "range ring" features that you can use to map out safety zones around buildings and distances around tree stands). It even has free LIDAR (you have to pay to get that with Spartan Forge). IMO it is also the easiest to use out of all of them (very easy to come up to speed on how to use its UI and features).

BUT!! And it's a big "but". It has HORRIBLE land ownership overlays - particularly in New Jersey. It is missing large amounts of public land in the eastern US (its "public lands" overlay shows next to nothing in NJ). And the private land ownership information is missing ownership names (all names are blank - even public land parcels don't show the state in the ownership name). It also doesn't have "hunting area" overlays (no deer zones or things like that).

The CalTopo $50 "pro" version doesn't have the value-add it should since it is missing all that public/private land data, but I still might buy its $20 "mobile" subscription and use it as my main app. Might still keep subscribing to Spartan Forge for at least the property ownership/public lands info, but I hate having to jump between different apps (and paying for them). If CalTopo ever fixes their land ownership overlays, I think that might just be the only app I'll use. 

[smittty]

Yea that update hunt stand did erased all my tracks. I got to see when my subcribtion runs out am going to start looking but to me land parcels and ownership is a must

[Bonefreak]

Have been w OnX nationwide for years and been very pleased with it. Even used it recently on our California trip. Never heard of CalTopo. 

[Jcol6268]

I used to use CalTopo on the desk top before these apps were available on phones. It was a great resource then. I can’t imagine it not being great now. I might have to check it out. 

[mazzgolf]

2 hours ago, Bonefreak said:

Never heard of CalTopo

I never heard of it either until this week. It's not geared towards the hunting community, but the app has been around since 2018. It's more for hikers. Originally was geared towards first responders/search&rescue.

I'm reading more about it now. Aside from not having hunting features (like there is no "whitetail movement predictor" stuff; there are no waypoint icons like "tree stand" or "buck scrape" (but there is a feature where you can ADD your own custom icons - something no other app has, that I know of), it has more features than anything I've seen in other apps.

The online docs are better than anything I've seen, too -- https://training.caltopo.com/

Just little things like editing lines and polygons are better - moving, adding, deleting vertices, joining, splitting. For hunting, they still have satellite imagery, wind overlay, GPS tracking (you can actually edit your tracks! Something I know HuntStand and Spartan Forge doesn't have; I don't remember this in OnX either). Import AND Export of data.

There's just tons of stuff in here.

Something I've been wanting and haven't seen in any of the hunting apps is the buffer stuff... it's easier to see it than explain it. But consider - suppose you want to firearm hunt but there's a building and/or playground on the other side of the property line. You want to know where the 450 foot safety zone is... here you go, draw a polygon around the houses/playground and tell it you want to create a 450 foot buffer around it:

Or how about if you have a tree stand on the edge of a field and you want to see distances out to specific ranges from that tree stand... use range rings:

Those two features alone are useful for hunting and I don't know of any other app (those geared towards hunters) that have this.

[mazzgolf]

Oh, and another thing they have that others don't (at least HuntStand and Spartan Forge don't) -  marine charts overlay. So you can use this duck hunting in the back bays and marshes  It's not Naviontics, but it's at least all in the same app (and you can download these maps for offline use).

[mazzgolf]

I figured it out  You can import data from ArcGIS maps .... all those maps NJ DFW publishes that shows public WMAs, deer zones, etc? Those are all ArcGIS (e.g. https://njdep.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=f911727918344032a64909181fc38fff )

CalTopo has a beta feature where you can add custom layers for most ArcGIS maps... I did this to get NJ WMAs and state parks/forests to show up on the base layer:

It's missing some things - fill colors so you can see it better and some other minor things, but this is very close to what I want. I'll ask CalTopo if they plan on fixing those things.

Doing it this way, I know the map will always be up to date because I know its slurping in data directly from the NJ DFW database. This might actually be more accurate than the hunting apps - they may only update their data periodically,  I dunno.

Now I just have to get CalTopo folks to fix the private property overlay and this app has pretty much everything I would want.

[smittty]

4 hours ago, mazzgolf said:

I figured it out  You can import data from ArcGIS maps .... all those maps NJ DFW publishes that shows public WMAs, deer zones, etc? Those are all ArcGIS (e.g. https://njdep.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=f911727918344032a64909181fc38fff )

CalTopo has a beta feature where you can add custom layers for most ArcGIS maps... I did this to get NJ WMAs and state parks/forests to show up on the base layer:

It's missing some things - fill colors so you can see it better and some other minor things, but this is very close to what I want. I'll ask CalTopo if they plan on fixing those things.

Doing it this way, I know the map will always be up to date because I know its slurping in data directly from the NJ DFW database. This might actually be more accurate than the hunting apps - they may only update their data periodically,  I dunno.

Now I just have to get CalTopo folks to fix the private property overlay and this app has pretty much everything I would want.

Let us know if anything changes 

[mazzgolf]

This is what I mean about how CalTopo has features no hunting app has... NJ publishes a bunch of maps via ArcGIS... CalTopo let's me import them as layers on the base map... Here's one that NJ DEP calls "Ocean Prime Fishing Areas".. Basically it's spots off the NJ coast. This is what it looks like imported in CalTopo:

Here's all the maps NJ publishes: https://mapsdep.nj.gov/arcgis/rest/services/Features/Environmental_admin/MapServer/layers

If other states has ArcGIS maps, you can do the same thing for those states.

 

 

[mazzgolf]

I am going to subscribe to CalTopo (Pro version). For reasons why, see this post...  I posted over there because there was another thread there where we were discussing hunting apps: https://saddlehunter.com/community/index.php?threads/caltopo-my-thoughts-reasons-why-i-just-subscribed.61539/

[mazzgolf]

On 7/3/2025 at 5:54 PM, smittty said:

land parcels and ownership is a must

I just found out the ReGrid app provides free unlimited property lookups nationwide - install the app and create an account. I used to worry about having to pay for a hunting app just to get property ownership info, but with this you get it for free.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.loveland.pr

[smittty]

5 hours ago, mazzgolf said:

I just found out the ReGrid app provides free unlimited property lookups nationwide - install the app and create an account. I used to worry about having to pay for a hunting app just to get property ownership info, but with this you get it for free.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.loveland.pr

Yea I need something that doubles as a gps with property lines I do use tracking often most of all the other crap i don’t need. 

Edited July 12 by smittty

[Doug1]

I will have to look into this. That recent Huntstand update was terrible and I can't stand the app now. I don't want to lose all my data in huntstand, but I really can't stand the app any longer and if this is what it was when I subscribed,  I never would have subscribed. 

[Bucksnbows]

3 hours ago, Doug1 said:

I will have to look into this. That recent Huntstand update was terrible and I can't stand the app now. I don't want to lose all my data in huntstand, but I really can't stand the app any longer and if this is what it was when I subscribed,  I never would have subscribed. 

I also hated the big update for a long time, but now I’m used to it and it is way too full of data for both my hunting spots in NJ and NY (5 properties between them) and all of my river restoration clients as well. I am sticking with HuntStand for now. 

[mazzgolf]

2 hours ago, Bucksnbows said:

it is way too full of data for both my hunting spots in NJ and NY (5 properties between them) and all of my river restoration clients as well. I am sticking with HuntStand for now. 

Another reason I hate HuntStand - HuntStand (and really all the others except OnX and CalTopo) lock you in because they do not allow you to export your data.

I have a ton of HuntStand marks, too, but as I look at them all, a lot of them I don't care about anymore. So I'll just leave them in HS and not copy them over (I can still see them in the free version of HS). For the important ones, I'll just copy their GPS cords and paste them into new markers in CalTopo - tedious, but doable. I'm doing this little by little.

The main issue is my tracks - those I would like to export. I'll just hand-draw lines for the important ones. Once I get them in CalTopo, I can export them to any other app if need be.

There is one thing I like in HuntStand -- you can click a property and save its border to your map and change its color to what you want - so it stands out (I like to outline private property I have permission on; or I outline WMAs that border private property so I don't wander off). Can't export those; would need to hand-draw polygons to copy to any other app. I don't know of any other app that has that feature. That feature and the "HuntZone" circle you overlay to get wind for deer and waterfowl hunt scenarios are the only two things I care about HuntStand - everything else I either don't like or can get in other apps.