GPS Kids | Early-Season Hunting with the Astro

Recently, a couple of us had the chance to head out to Central Nebraska for a sharptailed grouse and prairie chicken hunt in the Sandhills.  For those of you not aware of this unique ecosystem, it’s 20,000 square miles of rolling, sandy prairie.  Since the soil’s no good for agriculture, it’s more or less in the same state it’s been in for hundreds of years.

We met up with Steve Snell and an associate from Gun Dog Supply, one of our Astro gps kids watch Dog Tracking System dealers.  Combine big-running bird dogs with 90,000 acres of federal hunting ground, and you’ve got a perfect place to use the Astro.

Something as basic as finding your truck in this landscape can be hairy, so we appreciated the Astro’s ability to lead us back to our rigs.  But keeping an eye on our dogs is really where this unit shines.  It’s easy to lose sight of your dog, and without the Astro, there’d be no way to know if they were over the hill 50 or 500 yards away.

One of the perils of early season hunting is that temperatures can quickly rise to 80 degrees by noon — hot for humans, but potentially deadly for hard-working dogs.  Thankfully, windmills scattered every half-mile or so served as our oasis, and we used the Astro to help lead us to water (the dog’s didn’t seem to mind the slime).

The Astro certainly won’t guarantee success afield — we learned that the hard way on this trip.  But it will allow you to let your dogs do what they’ve been bred to do — and that in turn lets you enjoy your hunt.

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