GPS maps.

[rolmops]

I have been looking into buying a GPS unit and I took it for granted that all the lakes and rivers in the USA would be on GPS companies provided maps.I did some homework and as it turned out,non of the lakes I usually fish shows up on Gps maps with contours on them.Is there a source that provides digital maps which I would be able to download into a garmin or lowrance unit? Or do I just have to use waypoints and a paper map that does show contours.<br />Thank you for all your help and opinions,Rolmops.

 

[Bowfin]

Re: GPS maps.

No handheld gps will have a basemap with lake contours. That will require additional software. Are you looking at handheld or basemount for your boat? I have only researched handhelds, but I'll be glad to share what i have found. The only maps with contours for lakes that I have seen comes from Garmin- the Fishing Hotspots. you can sample for your area at www.garmin.com. I checked and there were only 4 lakes in my state (south carolina). The detail looked pretty good for the lakes I checked. Lowerance has a downloadable iFinder emulator that you can play with to see what detail yo umay have in your area. i haven't compared the detail of the emulator with the real iFinder, but I imagine the actaul detail would be pretty close. you would probably be better off to ordering paper lake maps for your lakes instead of trying to decipher them on a gps screen. I plan to use a lake map in tandem with my handheld gps. I haven't seen any samples of Magellan software to see if their topo software also includes lake bottom contours and depths. Even if it did, it would be hard to see on the tiny 1.5 " x 2.2 " screens.<br />Roscoe has a Magellan GPS map with the topo software, maybe he can ellaborate more on the detail.<br /><br />Bowfin

 

[JB]

Re: GPS maps.

Ahoy, Rolmops.<br /><br />As far as I know, if a lake is not on Garmin's Mapsource "Fishing Hotspots" CD, we are out of luck.<br /><br />I fish several lakes that are on there. . .Possum Kingdom, Lake Of The Woods, Ray Hubbard, et. al. . . . . but I also fish several smaller lakes that aren't on there.<br /><br />They help my confidence and sense of knowing what I am doing and keep me off the rocks but they don't seem to help me catch more fish.

 

[mattttt25]

Re: GPS maps.

i may be wrong, but i thought garmin offered blue charts for most areas, and they included lakes. could be wrong.

 

[rolmops]

Re: GPS maps.

Around here they have lake Ontario all through the St.Laurens seaway and then only Cayuga and Seneca Lake out of all the Fingerlakes.When fishing in Cape Cod bay you can just follow a contour line on your GPS, but around here spending 5 or 6 hundred bucks for a halfway decent boat mounted GPS makes no sense unless there is a way to downlaod from other digital map sources.<br />As far as catching more fish is concerned...<br />I learned a long time ago that the old guy with his hand line in his old skunky boat outfishes everybody on the lake..

 

[Boatist]

Re: GPS maps.

Rolmops<br />I do not know your area but out here in the west you will not find good maps for inland lakes unless there are marine chart for them. Almost all the maps are created off the marine charts. Lake Tahoe has good maps with most of the detail of a marine chart but that is about it.