In the world of northeast predator hunting, it is hard enough to get a shot on a wary coyote let alone a follow up shot. However, even the most perfectly executed shot can inherently miss its mark. Fast action predator hunting and misses go hand-in-hand, so to appease the need for a quick follow up shot or to handle multiple dogs, a fast shooting gun is just the ticket. After getting the itch to build a custom rifle I decided that rather than building a bolt action rifle, I would add a completely unique semi-auto weapon to my arsenal. This gun, built on the AR-15 (ArmaLite Model 15) platform and chambered for the 223 Remington cartridge, was assembled piece by piece to ensure it had all the features and accuracy expected from a custom gun.

An essential Android application for hunting groups everywhere. Backitude is an Android application that serves to integrate with Google Latitude and expand the options and accuracy when sharing your location with your friends.

Google Latitude is a great tool for hunters of the modern world, in strategy and safety. When hunting with friends, it can be very beneficial to know the whereabouts of everyone in your party. One can help improve success, for themselves and everyone, by avoiding a location that is already occupied or recently occupied, and thereby ruining a hunt. Safety can obviously be improved for these same reasons by avoiding an areas of occupancy you otherwise wouldn't have known. It can also be fun to see and watch where your friends are hunting, regardless of them being in your area or not! Google Latitude, however, is one step short of providing this functionality.

With Android-devices, Latitude will not use the GPS to update your location when running in the background or in "sleep-mode". What results is an inaccurate and seemingly useless location circle for this purpose. Also, Latitude may not update as frequently as you desire or might need. Our application was created to help address these issues while keeping battery efficiency in mind.

Backitude allows you to update your Google Latitude location at a specific time interval and keep your location as accurate as possible using GPS satellites, Wifi location detection, and Cell Tower signal triangulation*. (All while running in the background of your device- even in sleep mode!)

*Location detection is dependent on available resources for the device's actual location and the user's allowance of such detection in the System Location & security settings.

Though the basic information in this article may be common knowledge for the hunting community, the Snipers at DownWind Outdoors wanted to share our experiences with mapping programs and smart phones and how it can make hunting easier and more productive. The DownWind Snipers believe that 60% of predator hunting success comes from picking the right spot at the right time. With the recent rise in mapping software technology, picking the right spots have become even easier. Every predator hunter knows that there are factors that must be considered when setting up for a coyote hunt; of the utmost importance is wind direction. Though many hunters have tempted frequent hunting “hot spots”, if the wind isn’t right, even the hottest spot won’t produce successful hunts. The DownWind Snipers have put together this article to share some of our tricks and tactics for choosing the right hunting spot at the right time.

With the availability of aerial imagery, property data, Google Earth, and Google Maps we are able to do all of our scouting without stepping out into the field. The process starts with finding that next “honey hole” which isn’t always accomplished by driving the roads in search of a property that looks like it might contain coyotes. With the arrival of Google Earth and other similar mapping software, seeing the Earth from a “bird’s eye view” opens up hunting grounds that may have been hidden or not accessible from the roadside.

This brushy lot is not able to be seen from any road but with the availability of aerialthis has become one of our best hot spots.