Has anyone used aerial or topo photos from the internet to make their own blown up hunting camp map? I'm trying to make something to show other members of our group where our stands and trails are located. Any help, ideas, or tips would be great.

We have gone on google earth printed maps at Kinkos. Then we laminated them blown up on big paper. That way when we were doing drives we would use a dry erase pen to mark out where people should be or go. Then erase and come up with plan b. Worked great.

i am not positive but i think with google earth you can punch in your gps coordinates and it will overlay them on the picture of your area.you should be able to put the waypoints for your camp,stands or whatever on it then print it out...

I import my tracks and waypoints from my Garmin gps into google maps. It makes blue lines for the paths I walk (tracks) and a flag and waypoint name for the waypoints I create.

Very handy.

Search mytopo in Google, they have great aerial photos that have topo lines laid over the map. It cost a little but they are nice.

You can also do it yourself by taking screen shots from google earth and printing them out, I usuall print a large map on 9 peices of paper taped together. It take some time but its free and fairly easy.

Check your local county web site. Here in Clay where I live and Becker where I hunt you can get better photos than google earth. The GIS maps from the county also show the property lines over the aerial photos. I've noticed the google photos from my land are from 2000 and the county photos are from 2008.

You can edit those colors and display data too.

We bought maps that cover 9 sections on one sheet...about 2 feet square...we picked them up at the local FSA office....

two other suggestions...

do a search for:

"mn dnr landview" - has 2008 imagery and public land locations including state and national forests. click on the 'download map' in top left corner and you can save as a jpeg and format it to print on a large printer.

"northstar mapper" - ok, but landview is probably better.

I took the topo maps of the section we hunt, saved them into powerpoint and then used the text box feature to overlay our stands onto the map. Then created a map key to all of our stands.

They print out very sharp in color.

Check out this site soon for 2009 air photos, you have to download the entire county but they are nice. I have an email from them saying the 2009 files should be available for download in early Nov.

http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/chouse/airphoto/naip09.html

Thanks for all the great ideas everyone.

Frosty-
I've got a Garmin and use MapSource. How would I import my tracks and waypoints into google maps? Can you do this on Google Earth as well? After importing, can you blow up the map somehow or do you just print it onto one sheet of paper?

Yea, I mispoke. Google earth. In google earth click Tools, then GPS. From there you get a menu box. Choose your gps make (garmin) then the check boxes for Waypoints, Tracks and or Routes.

I haven't tried blowing it up. I print them on 8 1/2 by 11 paper.

I tried that, and it said I need Google Earth Plus to use the GPS feature. Is that something you can download for free or do you need to buy it?

Up until a year ago it required the $20 per year upgrade. It all went free though. How long has it been since you updated google earth? The current version is 5 point something.