boogieblues50
07-28-2008, 06:34 PM
Hey Guys and Gals
Ok I have an Eagle 642C IGF ploter finder..same as some of the Lowrance units...I wanted some better charts than what came with the unit...after several weeks of research I chose to go with the Navionic Gold + and the Navionics 2008 Premium lake hot maps...
When I got them and put them in my unit I was amazed with the details of my local lakes on the hot maps and the Gold plus of the gulf and bays I fish..Lots of functions...plenty of on board storage plus the additional storage on SD cards...plot routes...return routes...tide and time tables...marinas...waypoints can be saved up to 1000 or more..detail and conture lines were very defined and could be zoomed in like 15 times..
Ok here is what i didnt like about the whole set up gps unit and cards....on my unit the screen is onabout 6 inches and it was hard to set spots to try as fishing holes...I couldnt see the contour lines( Iam Half Blind...lol) and if I zoomed in to see the difference in deepth I would lose realativity to what was around me or where the points ect were.
So I ordered the card reader from Navionics with the software to view and plot courses or set hotspots on my PC and than transfer them to my unit...OMG..I cant tell you how much I love this stuff now...I put it up on my 21 inch flat screen and can see it all..I can set like 20 hotspots around good looking points and drop offs...creek channels ect...put in about 10 downrigger routes to run around deep channels ....I see this as being a Godsend for downrigger fishing in the lake...knowing the exact deepth before you run the course...knowing how deep you can go before worrying about hanging a connon ball...once its all on the pc I put it on a SD card and load it in My GPS unit...Put my Navionics card in and all the spots are now on the Navoinics map...pretty dang cool to me
..Ok here is another cool thing...I have a map of Lake Hartwell in Ga...its a Corps. of Engineers map from 1959 about 100 pages with all the contours before the lake was filled..Has all the old houses...barns....roadbeds...mills....graveyards ect on it...There is one old grave yard I use to fish a lot it has like 200 empty holes where the graves were...It use to take me about an hour to find it using the old flasher units and triangulation with land marks...but it was always good fishing if you could find it...Now with the Navionics Map and The old army corps. map..I can match them up and set hot spots on my GPS...also old roadbeds and Houses and mills....and get real close to them...Freash water reefs...lol.
Anyways Iam realy Happy with these cards...They also make a Platinuim card..My unit is not updated yet for them..And I dont think I would pay the extra$100 just for a google Sat. overlay..If You decided to try these..search the internet the prices vary greatly...I ended up at about $350 for both of the cards and card reader and software...But they cover all the lakes and salwater areas I will ever fish...I figure at the price of fuel I will save that much fairly quickj by not searching all over the lake for fishing spots...sorrta line them up from the ramp....1...2...3...and so forth
BoogieBlues
Ok I have an Eagle 642C IGF ploter finder..same as some of the Lowrance units...I wanted some better charts than what came with the unit...after several weeks of research I chose to go with the Navionic Gold + and the Navionics 2008 Premium lake hot maps...
When I got them and put them in my unit I was amazed with the details of my local lakes on the hot maps and the Gold plus of the gulf and bays I fish..Lots of functions...plenty of on board storage plus the additional storage on SD cards...plot routes...return routes...tide and time tables...marinas...waypoints can be saved up to 1000 or more..detail and conture lines were very defined and could be zoomed in like 15 times..
Ok here is what i didnt like about the whole set up gps unit and cards....on my unit the screen is onabout 6 inches and it was hard to set spots to try as fishing holes...I couldnt see the contour lines( Iam Half Blind...lol) and if I zoomed in to see the difference in deepth I would lose realativity to what was around me or where the points ect were.
So I ordered the card reader from Navionics with the software to view and plot courses or set hotspots on my PC and than transfer them to my unit...OMG..I cant tell you how much I love this stuff now...I put it up on my 21 inch flat screen and can see it all..I can set like 20 hotspots around good looking points and drop offs...creek channels ect...put in about 10 downrigger routes to run around deep channels ....I see this as being a Godsend for downrigger fishing in the lake...knowing the exact deepth before you run the course...knowing how deep you can go before worrying about hanging a connon ball...once its all on the pc I put it on a SD card and load it in My GPS unit...Put my Navionics card in and all the spots are now on the Navoinics map...pretty dang cool to me
..Ok here is another cool thing...I have a map of Lake Hartwell in Ga...its a Corps. of Engineers map from 1959 about 100 pages with all the contours before the lake was filled..Has all the old houses...barns....roadbeds...mills....graveyards ect on it...There is one old grave yard I use to fish a lot it has like 200 empty holes where the graves were...It use to take me about an hour to find it using the old flasher units and triangulation with land marks...but it was always good fishing if you could find it...Now with the Navionics Map and The old army corps. map..I can match them up and set hot spots on my GPS...also old roadbeds and Houses and mills....and get real close to them...Freash water reefs...lol.
Anyways Iam realy Happy with these cards...They also make a Platinuim card..My unit is not updated yet for them..And I dont think I would pay the extra$100 just for a google Sat. overlay..If You decided to try these..search the internet the prices vary greatly...I ended up at about $350 for both of the cards and card reader and software...But they cover all the lakes and salwater areas I will ever fish...I figure at the price of fuel I will save that much fairly quickj by not searching all over the lake for fishing spots...sorrta line them up from the ramp....1...2...3...and so forth
BoogieBlues