Your waypoint from last season puts coordinates on a memory. A year has passed, giving the ground beneath it time to change. A pair of dated views covering that location can reveal whether visible objects changed from one flight to the other. Neither image, however, can tell you whether deer use it. Here you will learn where to find another image date, which changes to check, where a crop layer from satellites fits, and what to write on an eight-line worksheet before hunting that saved spot.
STEP 1 · Two dates
Find the date beneath your pin, then get another dated view for comparison
The National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) provides public aerial imagery captured while trees have leaves. USGS explains that imagery is refreshed every three years or less from 2009 to the present. Hunt a pin placed on a 2022 tile in 2026, and the woodlot beneath it may have been logged, the grass field burned or the pond filled with silt. The leaf-off imagery guide explains how to check the age of your app's imagery. Here, you already have that date and need imagery from a second date.
Something beyond your property line may change what your pin means. This guide to evaluating wildlife land says planning must account for habitat and natural features on nearby properties. It points to deer as an example: they use a property to meet only a portion of their needs. A timber cut on neighboring land or a new plot over the fence can shift how deer use your hunting location even if your own trees remain in place.
STEP 2 · Getting a second date
Find a different flight over that location, keeping seasons alike
According to USGS, EarthExplorer lets you find NAIP imagery, view previews and download it. For images already acquired but still absent from EarthExplorer, USGS directs users to NAIP's customer service office. These routes let you examine a single location across multiple years.
Because NAIP flights occur with foliage present, each of your NAIP views depicts leaf-on conditions. Still, check when each was acquired and compare the cover in the fields. Put a leafy-season aerial beside winter imagery and you are comparing different seasons. Leaves and field cover explain much of the difference. If the seasons do not match, limit your reading to objects unaffected by the calendar: roofs, travel lanes, logging boundaries and skid trails.
STEP 3 · What two dates show
Use the change checklist to examine objects; never use it to judge animals
Set your earlier view beside the most recent image available to you. Check objects for changes. The table identifies differences worth spotting.
Swipe table to see every column
| Change you can see | What it might mean | What you still verify | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canopy holes, skid trails, log decks | Timber harvest or storm damage | How old the cut is; slash or clean floor | That deer left the area |
| A rectangle of different color in timber or grass | New plot, disking or construction | Planted or fallow; who owns it | That the plot gets daylight use |
| Field pattern, pivot tracks or residue | Crop rotation or tillage | This year's crop and harvest state | A travel route |
| A basin that used to look dark, now bare or overgrown | Dry pond or drained wetland | Water this week | That deer no longer drink on the farm |
| New roof, lane or lot | The human edge moved | When people are there | Pressure everywhere |
| Linear cover gone or gapped | Fence row pushed out or ditch sprayed | Whether your travel hypothesis died | That deer have nowhere to go |
When the photos show no differences, the habitat visible in them appears to have stayed the same. Even taken together, the images do not confirm deer use.
Logging starts an ongoing process, too. According to Purdue, reaching the desired condition after a timber harvest may require 15 to 50 years of regrowth, or longer. Your comparison image records just a moment within that continuing change.
STEP 4 · Crop layer
Add a third date through the Cropland Data Layer, while respecting its limits
The Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is published by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), an agency within USDA. The agency's FAQ explains that this yearly raster identifies crop types using satellite images and ground reference information for agriculture. Its resolution is 30 meters for 2008 to 2023 and 10 meters starting in 2024. A given year's layer comes out the next winter. NASS gives February 27, 2026 as the release date for the 2025 layer. If you open the latest layer in fall 2026, you are looking at the crop for 2025.
Hunters need to understand four limits
- According to NASS, the layer cannot yield any data reported by farmers. It classifies satellite imagery rather than documenting planting.
- Multiplying the number of pixels by each pixel's area produces biased acreage estimates, usually on the low side. NASS describes these as raw figures requiring correction for bias. Never use the pixel total as your acreage.
- NASS treats field margins separately. The agency applied inward buffers to its training fields: 30 meters for layers from 2007 to 2018 and 15 meters for layers beginning in 2019. NASS explains the buffering this way: it "removes spectrally mixed field edge pixels", keeping them out of the classifier. That very margin is where a fence row, ditch or grassed waterway lies.
- Pixels measuring 30 meters span about 100 feet, exceeding the width of many ditches and fencerows.
Use a classification change from one year to the next as a cue to check the field. Do not treat that change as documentation of what grew there. Keep all crop and harvest timing questions at the county scale. The standing corn guide explains how to read county harvest information. This guide stays with the question that changes more slowly: whether the object marked by your pin is still there.
STEP 5 · Pin-age worksheet
Complete eight worksheet lines before returning to last season's marker
Your marker remains a hypothesis whenever a required line is empty. Only the crop-layer line is optional.
Picture your pin in a corner full of weeds between a bean field and a patch of woods. The earlier image shows that corner. In the newer leaf-on image, a rectangle of bare soil occupies the spot, with a new lane leading from the county road. That patch of weeds has disappeared. Stop using the old pin until a walk on land you own or have permission to enter gives you reason to reconsider. The spot could become a plot that produces results in October, or it could be a pad for a building. The second image made you question what was happening there.
STEP 6 · Next step
Give an old marker its image date, make the comparison, and confirm ownership before knocking
Choose a trusted marker saved last season. Identify its underlying image year and get another flight over the location. Complete your worksheet before walking an edge. On private property, keep in mind that the app's owner listing reflects a dated county record, while its parcel outline does not constitute a survey. Consult the landowner name check for steps to confirm the recorded owner before requesting access. Having a mapping account never gives you permission.
For an example of a layer with its age stated, look at the mapping features. The features page dates the flight for its described leaf-off imagery layer to winter 2025.
Your Pin Is Older Than the Field: Check Two Image Dates
Checklist
NOTES AND SOURCES
- Aerial photos, terrain mapping and parcel layers portray land as it was when captured or recorded. None constitutes a survey or a legal boundary.
- Neither deer activity nor hunting success is guaranteed here. Check the applicable seasons and regulations, and confirm permission before hunting.
Fully Drawn Research is an independent data analysis desk, not affiliated with any state wildlife agency, transportation agency, mapping provider or outfitter. FDR maps give context from public imagery, terrain, and parcel records; they do not predict deer activity or replace a field check.
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