I’ve been working with some of the manufacturers of electronic lakemaps and we’re very interested in ideas from the fishermen who are the end-users of these maps. So here’s your chance to put your ideas in the suggestion box. What would you like to see in electronic mapping for freshwater lakes and rivers that isn’t available now? This information will be passed on to the map manufacturers. Thank you.
It’s too bad most of the lakes in WI do not have depth contours on the electronic mapping I have seen. At least the information is available from other sources even if it is old. Lakes don’t change anywhere as much as rivers so the information is still valid.
Osprey007 – Any specific lakes you’d like to see?
I’d like to see all of the Twin Cities lakes that have public accesses included! 
Id’e like to see a “Star Trek” type real time map that shows where all the fish are and every other living organism for that matter.
Wade,
I’v talked to various people before, but I think the best addition to the hi-def maps would be showing rock & weed areas like the hot spots maps do. Also, it would be neat if you could make bold a certain depth line.
No specifics. I fish a lot of different lakes around 75 acres to around 1000 acres. I fish Lake Wissota occationally since it’s close, but there are so many other much better fishing lakes. Lakes 75 to 200 acres are tiny in comparision lakemapped lakes I have seen previously and may not be worth the time to add to a lakemapping set. There are paper maps from the 60’s and early 70’s with depth contours for most all those lakes with public access.
I see some of the BIG lakes in MN have really detailed maps. Perhaps it’s all (sales – cost) which determines what lakes to choose. If (big if) they got permission from states’ DNRs they could probably get them in the lakemap sets rather easily.
Thanks for reaching out to the community.
Osprey007, Thanks for the feedback. Did you know that Lake Wissota is on the Navionics Hotmaps Premium North ? You’re correct that much of it has to do with the popularity of a given lake, but also a major factor is what data source is available. The lakemap manufacturers want to avoid including lakes with poor data sources, but it is a constant struggle – it’s the number versus quality issue that they are continuously trying to resolve. Not an easy task when you think about how many lakes there are out there! Thanks again and keep the feedback coming.
Mike, I totally agree on the rock and weeds and I think that’s something we’ll begin to see in the future. We’ll definately pass the feedback on to the right people. On the “bold” issue there is a similar feature on the Navionics Premium where you can have a blue shade at a certain depth. I’ve left mine set at the factory setting but I think you can manually make some adjustments. Maybe someone here knows? I’ll have to check on that to be sure. If it’s not already a feature I don’t think it’d be a tough one to include. Thanks!
Keep the ideas coming guys. What do you like? What don’t you like? What would you like to see?
Quote:
Wade,
I’v talked to various people before, but I think the best addition to the hi-def maps would be showing rock & weed areas like the hot spots maps do. Also, it would be neat if you could make bold a certain depth line.
The river is so difficult to map but I believe that with todays technology and with field “reps” or scouts maybe having some of the river areas marked with max or average depth at a certain pool level or stage. For example an 8 in the middle of a backwater that gets to 8 feet at a pool level of __ or a stage of___. This might be too much to ask but maybe a line marking existing boat lanes or safe running lines into backwaters???? My biggest frustration is that without much time to fish I use maps to pick out areas on new pools or to explore known pools, but the problem is i might blow over 200 yards of 6″ water to find 6″ water and a long, muddy walk back pushing a heavy boat.
I think I’d second what Osprey007 alluded to – it’d be nice to have some of the old DNR contour maps as “fill” for a number small lakes for a given region. We all know most of those maps haven’t been updated in 30, 40, or more years and are not the most accurate, but even so, its a guide. I love the idea of adding rocks/weeds to the maps. Maybe even indicate the direction of the flow of rivers into and out of a body of water or the type of fish that are known to hold in a given area.
Guys, I love this feedback and really appreciate it. It’s kind of interesting so far because a few of you are saying “give me a map of my lake, even if it’s not that accurate” and I’ll tell you guys, some of the biggest complaints we hear with mapping is the lack of accuracy on some lakes. It usually comes in the form of “I was on lake X and my map showed me 50 feet up on shore”. It reminds me that there is a wide audience out there and that the map manufacturers have a tough task given that the customer base has such different wants. So am I hearing some of you correctly? Do you really want quantity at the expense of quality? Or would you rather have the most accurate maps of the most popular lakes? Or, do most of you demand both?
I’ll tell ya, from my perspective a map that’s not all that accurate can be helpful at times but also can be incredibly frustrating. There’s a lake that I run that needs some updating yet and I like using the map as a reference but it would sure be helpful if I knew I was on or very near that piece of structure without having to monitor the sonar so much. I guess when it comes down to it I’m glad I have the map but I can’t wait until we’re able to get these things so they’re all dead-on-balls accurate.
Keep the thoughts coming guys. It’s very helpful and could impact the products you run in the future. Thanks!
I’d like to see a system that is not brand specific, downloadable, accurate, and sells for under $100 bucks. 
Thanks Wade for the very interesting and also very important question. I like the idea of rocks and weeds. Also adding the names of fish species commanly caught in the areas would be great too as some do and some don’t. A couple years ago when I was down at Lake Okoboji in Iowa prefishing with my youngest son Nate as he was fishing the RCL Walleye Leaque Championship we both had the Minnesota/Iowa chip in our GPS. While he was fishing the tournament a buddy of mine and I went to a bluegill spot that was marked on the map and anchored and caught fish and shot the breeze and had a good o’l time out of the tournament anglers way. Also putting the Faribault Minnesota to Mankota Minnesota area lakes on the chips would be great along with the Twin Cities area lakes.
Thanks, Bill
Bass Addict – When you say “downloadable”, do you mean you want to be able to load it onto your computer to do some pre-planning? Or do you mean to be able to download the map to your GPS? Thanks!
Bill, thanks for the input!
Since no one else mentioned the accuracy I will. The Navionics chips that are the hotmaps paper maps loaded on to a chip in the 5′ contours are okay on some lakes and very off on others. I have noticed this on Bemidji, there are some small humps out there and the map is more than just a little off in some spots. On paper you just get to the area and drive around until you find the hump but when you are looking at contour lines on your GPS screen that aren’t even close to accurate it makes running a break line or locating and circling a hump difficult.
The older premium chip with the 1′ contours for Mille Lacs/Leech/Gull and Whitebear is great at least on Mille Lacs and Leech…never used it on Gull or Whitebear.
I like the idea of showing rock, gravel, sand or rubble bottoms because they don’t change, but weedlines change from year to year depending on water levels and temps and putting something that varies year to year on a chip seems unnecessary. I think it would also make people question the accuracy of a chip….if it shows emergent vegetation in a spot and there isn’t any the confidence in the chip will greatly decline.
Something that would be really great…..
If you could order a chip with the lakes you want on it.
For $XXX you get to pick some(5, 10, more) lakes that have the 1 foot contours available and they are loaded on a chip for you. That way you are getting the most bang for your buck.
JB
I have to agree with Buckshot. Accuracy and the ability to purchase the lakes that we fish would be 2 advantages compared to today’s product. What we have now is nice but I think there’s some major enhancements that can be made for the same dollar.
JB and Kurt, Thanks for the feedback. I agree with you on the accuracy issue, and so do the map manufacturers. It’s a high priority and it’s just going to take a little time to get those lake surveys done. Some of the lakes are very accurate and some need a lot of work. Structure and bottom content would be a great feature to see on more of the maps. Again, I think we’ll be seeing that with more lake surveys getting done. I’ll be sure to pass it on to the map makers.
I also like the idea of being able to select your own crop of lakes and maybe that will be feasible some day. Right now, I see it being a problem in terms of distribution. The retailers would have to have hundreds of different map products on the shelf in order to sell all the possible combinations customers might want. That obviously can’t happen right now. Maybe, in the future, it will be easier for a retailer to “load” a crop of lakes from a central data base and sell individualized chips that way. I expect that some day we’ll be able to load individual lake maps via the internet right on our home computer, just like downloading music. I think they’ll have to figure out a solid way to keep people from being pirates and violating copyright laws. Individualized, personalized maps is definately a great idea and would be awesome if we could make it work. In the meantime, I think we can push for more choice/variety in our mapping options, even if they are pre-selected.
Thanks again guys!
There are some flat maps that are colored,so once the angler gets used to the different shades it seems easy to set patterns then the different shades really start to pop out to the angler to make different contact points.
I guess I’d sure like to see something like an exchange policy past the one year warranty. Even if it was a pay exchange. Sort of like the $20 Microsoft charges you to replace a defective CD. When I talked to Navionics yesterday they told me you were forbidden to back it up and if it broke as all data storage devices do, you were pretty screwed… and had to ante up for a new one past the first year..) I think you should have to register it and then if it fails send it in at just enough to cover the cost of the SD or MMX card.
Ordering the lakes you like in your state and surrounding lakes you go to only would sure be nice… Guvner..
I would love to see all of the whitefish chain, last I looked they had 2 lakes, and 2 only, I’d like to see at teh very least crosslake, but the rest of the chain should be done.
Ok – after finally doing some serious fishing this past weekend and checking out my Navionics maps, I’ve reassessed what I’d like to see. The Navionics maps already indicate areas of emergent/submergent vegetation along with stumps and rocks (accuracy was OK). It also indicates areas where a species of fish is known to hold (the accuracy of this is questionable – or it could just be the bait I’m using 
). I think it would be great if a person could shade in areas of a map that have been productive (or are worthless). I still like the idea of loading the DNR maps, or maybe have the unit default to the Lowrance map if data of a given lake isn’t included on the chip (at least you’d get the outline of a lake instead of the yellow screen or being forced to manually switch maps). Also, I think it would be neat if some basic lake info was included (lake size, clarity, avg depth, etc.) and shoreline landmarks such as public launches were shown. Perhaps give a person the option of using pop-up boxes that would popup when reaching a specific hotspot and provide pre-loaded tips for the fish that are known to hold there or let the person make their own notes that could also be also transferred to your PC and used with your own maps.
MN-RST-RIDER: Check out the Navionics maps. It has the Whitefish chain and Cross lake (I used mine this past weekend).
Check out the Lakemaster Pro Map Series – they have the entire Whitefish chain
I would like to see better display of the Mississippi River System…not necessarily depth but a lot of the cuts and back waters sloughs…
Better color differentiation from one depth contour to the next.
EJ
I just saw this post, and haven’t read all the replies so far, so I hope I’m not repeating something thats already been said, but I would love to see the color chips include a green color for weed areas/beds. It would be a great help to fishermen on a new body of water to quickly zero in on areas that they do, or do not want to look at.
Jack, Have you run the Navionics Premium chip yet? It has the green shading for weedbeds on many lakes.
No, I haven’t. The main board on my X19 went kaput just about the same day that my replacement chip (Premier North Region) came back from Jeff at Navionics. I’ve been using Aaron McQuoid’s extra graph during the mean time and didn’t want to chance any of my bad luck rubbing off on his unit. I just got my graph back next day FedEx from Tulsa, and am leaving to head back to Mille Lacs in a few minutes for guide trips the rest of the week. I’lll check it out when I’m out on the water tomarrow.
Jack, Let me know what you think of the Premium North on Mille Lacs if you get a chance to use it. Have fun!
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