The reason for that is I want to get precise (centimeter level) position of sonar readings. They're an excellent investment in fun.I want to connect Leica RTK GPS (Leica SmartAntenna + Leica RX1250 controller) to LOWRANCE LMS-525 C DF via NMEA 0183. If you do much of that kind of fishing, pull out your credit card and get the Navionics maps. They allow you to go precisely to lake bottom features which hold fish. But when you're fishing away from shore, particularly in bigger lakes or the ocean, Navionics maps can be invaluable. For example, if you're fishing weed beds along the shore in shallow water for bass or pike, and can easily find your favorite spots by using landmarks along the shore, Navionics maps may not be very helpful. Then I finally bought the Navionics maps, and wished I had bought them years earlier.įor some kinds of fishing, Navionics maps aren't particularly useful. And I did pretty well with those techniques. If I found a school of fish, I'd go through the area in cloverleaf or figure eight patterns to pin down the location of the fish, the the help of the GPS track shown by my fish finder, which you will get whether on not you have a map chip in your fish finder. When I found a prominent feature shown on the maps, such as a sharp drop-off, a ridge, or the top of a mound, I'd mark it with a waypoint. Then with the help of the maps, I'd explore around the lake with sonar. Here's what I did for a number of years: When I was going to fish on a lake which has been mapped by Navionics, I'd go to the Navionics web app, take screen shots of the maps of that lake, paste them into a Word document, print the maps, and laminate them. It would be interesting to compare a high definition LakeMaster map of a lake which you know well to a Navionics map of the same lake, to see which map has greater detail and accuracy. So if you do most of your fishing on a lake which is covered by a high definition LakeMaster map, you may be OK on that lake. They're worthless.įrom pictures I have seen of high definition LakeMaster maps, they appear to have comparable detail to the Navionics maps. By selling those crappy maps, LakeMaster is basically committing fraud. When I saw the LakeMaster map, I thought that the fishfinder had failed to connect to the map card, and I was seeing the base map which came with the fish finder, but it turns out that that’s what LakeMaster’s “Standard Definition Survey” of Flathead Lake looks like. LakeMaster's contour lines just follow the shoreline of the point. For example, at the northwest corner of Finley Point, the LakeMaster map doesn’t show the line of mounds up to 150 feet high which extends to the northwest from the point (from 200 feet up to 50 feet, and extending for about 3/4 of a mile, so they aren't a trivial underwater feature). They look like a child was given a crayon and told to draw a couple of lines parallel to the lakeshore.
I went fishing on Flathead Lake with a friend who had just bought the LakeMaster maps, and discovered that the standard definition maps of that lake are less than worthless. Flathead Lake, which I fish a lot, isn't covered by a high definition Lakemaster map. Only 11 lakes in Montana are “HD Lakes,” which are identified by bold type on the list, and none of the lakes in Montana are “HD LakeMaster Surveyed Lakes," which are identified by bold italic type on the list. But if you look more carefully at the list, you discover that not all of the maps are “high definition” maps. The website lists about 500 lakes in Montana. The LakeMaster maps aren't available for viewing on line, but a list of LakeMaster maps for the western states is available at.
VIEWING LOWRANCE MAPS ON PC FORUM FOR FREE
You can see exactly what the Navionics maps for anyplace in the county look like by checking out the Navionics Web App, which is available for free at I just bought a new fish finder, and wondered whether to buy Navionics or LakeMaster maps for the new equipment. Despite this occasional lack of detail, the Navionics maps are extremely useful. And those features often attract and hold fish. For example, an area shown as a smooth slope on the Navionics maps may in fact contain a variety of ridges, gullies, pinnacles, and cliffs, which you discover by traversing along contour lines and jigging. From using them extensively, I know that they don't show some fine details. In the past I have used Navionics maps on my fish finder, and they're pretty good.