I am in New Hampshire which has about 15 degrees West declination. My coordinate system in arcmap is NAD_1983_StatePlane_New_Hampshire_FIPS_2800_Feet.
I am showing points with an arrow which is rotated and should point the way I was looking at that point. These are overlaid a boundary survey and they are often a bit off but I have attributed that to the compass in the tablet used not being very good. But here I have an example where the survey lines are directly north/south and east/west. I have to points at the corner with rotation angle (geographic) of 270 and 180 but they are not pointing 270 and 180:
If I add the 15 degrees declination it lines up as it should:
I just don't understand why I should have to add the declination. If anything (in West declination) I thought you added it when you went from map to the field and subtract when going from field to map, so if anything I should be subtracting it, but that will just make it all even worse.
Struggling to wrap my head around this. What am I missing?