ProUnderstanding LiDAR for Hunting
LiDAR is the most powerful terrain analysis tool available to hunters — but only if you know how to read it. This guide teaches you to identify the specific terrain features that deer and other game use, using the ProHunt LiDAR hillshade layer.
What You Are Looking At
The LiDAR hillshade in ProHunt renders elevation data as if lit from a northwest sun angle. Lighter areas are higher; shadows indicate lower terrain or depressions. Because the data is high resolution, features that are invisible on standard topographic maps appear clearly.
Feature 1: Benches
What they look like: Horizontal bands of lighter colour on a slope face. A bench is a flat or near-flat interruption in an otherwise sloping hillside.
Why deer use them: Benches provide flat ground on steep hillsides. Deer use benches to travel across slopes without expending the energy of repeated climbing. Bucks bed on benches to observe downhill while the prevailing winds carry scent from the slope below — giving them sensory coverage in both directions.
How to find them: Enable LiDAR at 70% opacity over satellite. Look for the distinctive horizontal lighter bands on hillsides. On a clear LiDAR layer, even a 1-metre bench is detectable as a slight shadow line.
Stand placement: Set a stand just above a bench on the downwind side, covering the bench itself and the trail running along it. Deer are likely entering the bench from both ends — plan your stand for coverage of both entry points.
Feature 2: Saddles
What they look like: A notch or low point in a ridgeline — two high points with a visible narrowing between them. On LiDAR hillshade, the saddle appears as a shadow-to-light transition across the ridge crest.
Why deer use them: Deer crossing a ridge take the path of least resistance — the lowest point. A saddle concentrates crossing deer from both sides of the ridge into a predictable narrow zone.
How to find them: Trace ridgelines on the LiDAR layer. Every low point where the ridge narrows and dips is a saddle. On standard topo, only saddles with greater than 5-10 metre relief appear. LiDAR reveals subtle saddles that concentrate deer even on relatively flat ridges.
Stand placement: Below the saddle on the downwind side by 30-50 metres. Deer will cross through the saddle and typically continue straight down the slope on the other side — your stand should cover that exit trail.
Feature 3: Creek and Drainage Micro-Topography
What they look like: LiDAR reveals the subtle elevation change as stream banks rise from the water's edge. A stream that appears as a simple blue line on a road map shows distinct bank structure on LiDAR — flat terraces, sharply cut banks, and wide shallow crossings.
Why deer use them: Deer follow creek edges as natural travel corridors. They prefer to cross streams at shallow, gradual-bank locations and tend to bed on elevated creek terraces with good scent detection from the drainage.
How to find the crossings: On the LiDAR layer, trace the creek and look for widening shadow patterns indicating gentle banks vs the tight shadow of a cut bank. The gentle crossings are where deer cross — a stand set 50 metres downstream on the prevailing wind side covers the crossing from an approach deer do not detect.
Feature 4: Old Clear-Cuts and Log Roads
What they look like: Subtle straight lines or geometric shapes in an otherwise organic terrain. Old log roads appear as shallow linear depressions. Grown-over clear-cut edges show as slight terrain disturbance lines.
Why deer use them: Old disturbance areas regenerate into dense browse — the young hardwood shoots, forbs, and brambles are prime deer food. The subtle terrain disturbance from clearing and logging operations also creates micro-terrain that deer navigate along.
Practice Exercise
Open ProHunt and navigate to a property you know well. Enable LiDAR at 70% opacity. Before looking at where your stands are, mark what you see on the LiDAR as features — benches, saddles, drainages. Then compare those features to your saved stand waypoints. How many of your best stands are on or near these features? This exercise builds your pattern recognition for reading terrain on new properties you have never walked.
Related Features
- LiDAR Layer — technical documentation
- 3D Maps — view terrain features three-dimensionally
- AI Heatmaps — Pro probability overlay that pairs with terrain reading