A Maps App designed for Aussie Hunters with Frank Megali & Rob Campbell

This week Matty sits down with Frank Megali and Rob Campbell, the creators of The Hunting App For years, NSW public land hunters had access to a free mapping option that allowed them to load their maps, see exactly where they were and head into the bush. When that disappeared behind a subscription, Frank and Rob saw an opportunity to give hunters that functionality back. The result is The Hunting App. An app designed by hunters, for hunters… with a free version that actually stays free. You can load your maps, download areas for offline use, mark waypoints, build geofences, keep track of hunting locations and start building your own database of what you're seeing in the bush. Then there are paid tiers coming for hunters who want to take things further with e-scouting, weather, property boundaries, terrain analysis and a heap more. But what I really liked about this conversation is the thinking behind it. These guys aren't trying to take something hunters already had for free and sell it back to them. They wanted to give the community a useful free tool first… then let the hunters themselves help shape where it goes from there. What We Cover: How Rob got into hunting through a mate's backyard target shoot before discovering R-Licence hunting and NSW State ForestsWhy Rob reckons new hunters should start scouting, setting trail cameras and learning animal behaviour before they've even got all their hunting gearHow watching deer without the pressure of taking a shot helped Rob understand feeding, bedding and movement patternsFrank's background hunting rabbits, foxes and deer, and how he now hunts with big-game indicating dogsHow Frank and Rob train their dogs to recognise deer scent, ignore non-target animals and work within a controlled range in front of the hunterWhy Avenza's pricing change became the catalyst for creating The Hunting App and why keeping a genuinely free version mattered to themHow the free version handles georeferenced maps, DPI maps, offline satellite and topo mapping, pins, notes and up to nine square kilometres of offline mapsHow private-property hunters can use boundaries, geofences, gates and no-go zones to make communication with farmers clearer and saferHow the upcoming e-scouting tools combine property boundaries, routes, watercourses, terrain, slope, weather, wind forecasts and other map layers before you leave homeHow NSW public land hunters can store licences and permissions while still carrying the required DPI-provided maps to