The author marks the location of a rub on his handheld GPS. After he transfers the locations of rubs, scrapes and other deer sign he has marked on his GPS to a regular topo map, that information often reveals where deer travel and why.

The more sophisticated models feature a color monitor, a digital compass, the ability to display topographic maps and satellite photos, and much more. Add to that 1,000 or more waypoints, and you hold an amazing amount of deer hunting information in the palm of your hand.

I've owned a Garmin GPSMAP 60C for several years, but I failed to take full advantage of it until after I tagged an 8-point buck in early November 2008 with a longbow. Since then, I've spent many afternoons scouting new hunting grounds in preparation for Ohio's 2009 bow season.

The GPSMAP60C was my constant companion on these outings. Its color display shows topographic maps of my hunting region that I downloaded from a CD. I leave the unit on constantly while scouting, because it runs for 18 hours on two AA batteries. The batteries usually last for five or more scouting sessions.

The little GPS prevents me from getting turned around more often than I care to admit. It has surely saved me many wasted miles of hiking in circles. And it occasionally helps me find my way back to my truck when I'm scouting large tracts of wooded hill country that I've never seen before.

RECORDING WAYPOINTS
This alone is worth the cost of the GPS. What makes it indispensable are the waypoints that record any buck sign I find. I mainly mark big rubs, scrapes, trails, large tracks and beds. I also punch in waypoints for thickets, funnels and feeding areas like stands of white oaks.

Lowance's iFinder Hunt C displays topographic maps on a 2.8-inch color monitor and has an electronic compass, 2,000 waypoints and many other features, including a built-in microphone for recording voice notes.

You can use numbers for waypoints and then jot what each number corresponds to on a notepad. I prefer to use abbreviations for waypoints, such as rb for rub, sp for scrape, fn for funnel, and so on. Since you can't enter two waypoints in a GPS that have the same name, I add a number to my abbreviations. For example, if I find a rub and a scrape in a funnel, my waypoint reads: rbspfn, plus a number that differentiates it from other funnels where I find a rub and a scrape.

My handheld GPS has a far better memory than I have. I've scouted more than 7,000 acres of land since last winter, and I've entered several hundred waypoints in my GPS. I could never remember all those places, let alone how to return to them. However, the waypoints on my GPS are a permanent record, and they will take me back precisely to any spot I wish to return to.

A TOPO MAP HELPS
Given the small size of the 60C's display (1.5 x 2.2 inches), it doesn't give me a good overview of my larger hunting areas. That's why I also bring along a paper topographic map with me. You might think a GPS plus a map is overkill, but I've found otherwise.

Say you bring only a topo map, and you come across a string of big rubs. You mark the location of each rub on the map and figure you're good to go. However, you might not be exactly where you think you are, which means you've marked the wrong places on the map. If that happens, good luck finding that rub line again, and the buck that made it!

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