Hand held GPS question

[ParallaxBill]

I think I'm getting a Lowrance H2O hand held GPS for Christmas and was wondering if it will be sufficient for casual boating on inland lakes and occasionally some inshore fishing. I'm on a tight budget and will also use the unit for hunting.

Does anyone have any experience with this or a similar hand held GPS they could share with me? Pluses or minuses?

Thanks,

 

[eurolarva]

Re: Hand held GPS question

H2O is an awsome unit. Very good with batteries (at least 10 hours) and comes with a power adaptor for your car. I currently have the navonics chip which cost additional 120 that has had maps for every lake I have fished in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It has like 8000 lakes. I have read posts comparing the Navonics chip to the Lakemaster chip which has recently released their 2007 chip and it is suppose to be fantastic. Seems to me the lakemaster chip has a faster response time then the navonics and I believe it gives you more mapping abilities as well. The navonics chip has more lakes. You can go to their website and see what is availible. Stand alone with no chips you are not going to get a lot of inland lakes however I believe there is great lakes and ocean hazard information on the unit. Some of the lakes I have fished using the H2O has been so accurate that I could fish using the GPS instead of the Depth finder. Other programs availible are Map create which I believe is the program that Lakemaster used to create their chip.
Here is a link to a fishing site I frequent that is based on the Navonics and Lakemaster chip
fishing link

 

[GR8_Outdoorsman]

Re: Hand held GPS question

Most of the hand-held GPS on the market today are more than adequate for hunting and fishing. I use a couple of Magellan hand-helds and have had zero problems with them. I feel lost when I am not using one. Good luck and enjoy. Take the time to truly understand the unit and how to properly operate it. Many people just open them up, power them up, and take off. While they do get some value from them, they are definitely not fully utilizing the unit.

 

[Babyfurn]

Re: Hand held GPS question

I use the most simple etrex garmin for my hunting since I am most interested in a crumb trail and setting my own waypoints. The unit is fantastic for my purpose, we go in an out of some very deep everglades and no roadmaps. I use a much more sofisticated unit for my ocean going fishing boat. The goto feature is perfect and setting routes is just what I need.null

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