Navionics Mapping System

just got back from lake of the woods where i used my electronic map chip to navigate that huge lake like i lived there all my life. it’s absolutely amazing what this system does!ran down humps and reefs that would have taken forever to find using a paper map in just minutes.had a guide ask me back at camp how the !?#& did you find those humps around chilsom island?he’d fished there for the past 10 years and still had trouble locating them on a daily basis.i’m tellin’ ya this is the greatest fishing technology yet.every reef,bar,island is there on the map.every depth contour and all navigation info is right there. mapped by satelite,its perfect.best $130 i ever spent.i could have never traveled the distance i did,found the spots or caught the fish like i did without it.chip #10 has all of iowa and minnesota along with rainy and l.o.t.w. one 1 chip!

Where would one look to find more information about this product? I’m going to be fishing some new water this fall and would like to have a headstart!
Thanks,
Steve

what area are you interested in?they make several chips for just about everywhere.

SK,

Do you have a mapping GPS? If not, make sure you buy one that is compatible with the Navionics chips. Don’t quote me, but I was thinking that Lowrance/Eagle units were about the only units that are compatible with Navionics??

One other brand to consider, depending on the bodies of water you are looking for, is Lakemaster. They have the best paper maps out there for Leech, Mille Lacs, and Gull. They used the same technology in the MMC cards.

Do a little research, make sure the chips have the lakes you fish, then purchase the GPS and MMC chips accordingly.

Thanksfor the info! I’m starting the research this evening!
Thanks,
Steve

Hey rudy, which locator are you running and may I ask what the price is for that model? Thanks, Bill

i’m running a lowrance x-15mt with gps.the unit is $699 and the gps is $275.expensive but worth the cash.lowrance lets you upgrade your system by downlaoding new software from their website.my unit is 5 years old but due to the free upgrades it has the same technowlodgy that a 2003 unit has.they should keep this available until it is totally obsolete which will be quite awhile.
this is the most amazing thing i have ever seen. if i were a tourney fisherman i couldn’t imagine not having it and suspect that the guys who do aren’t saying much yet!it is just too good to be true.
on lake of the woods it is a maze of islands with very few navigation aids that you’d spend a lifetime learning your way around on but i was running to spots that were over 30 miles from our camp without stopping!

Will that same chip work in a Lowrance LMS 240? Thanks, Bill

I have a Lowrance globle map 4000 GPS stand alone got the navonics map for the 35 lakes in MN checked it out on pool 4 it was very acrrate and with the big screen great to see and read has a very good zoom on the unit it retails in most stores for $699.00 plus the maps

yup, it will work in any unit that takes the mmc chip.i have now put a lowrance 3200 stand alone gps unit on display here in my store with the #10 chip in it that has all of iowa and minnesota plus rainy and lake of the woods.just showing people the unit in action triggers that “i gotta have it” emotion!the 3200 sells for $399 and the chip is $129 so its pretty affordable.i know for my part that it was the best $129 i spent on our vacation.

Rudy,

I absolutely agree with you 100% with the ability to navigate with these GPS MMC cards. I have bought several cards for my X-15 for different bodies of water that I frequent. I recently went to Lake of the Woods in June and relied heavily on this slick feature to get me out to where I wanted to fish (at times were over 20 miles away) and also more importantly get me back to home base again at the end of the day. What a valuable asset this has been over the years. This year I purchased the MMC card for Mille Lacs (Reel bottom) and can honestly say it makes my fishing that much more effiecient and enjoyable and being able to know exactly where you are in relation to the different pieces of structures that are out in the lake. All the guess work is eliminated which gives me more time to be effiecient on the water whether it be in a tournament, guiding or just out on a pleasure trip. I would recommend this card(s) to anyone that fishes big water and or want to eliminate the use of a paper map flying around in the boat.

Good post Rudy!

thanks deez-
the ONLY problem with this tool is that you’ll find yourself relying on it so much that if it broke you’d be
!@#^&*.i have a garmin e-trex that i use for hunting so i took it along and put key navigation points in it as an insurance policy cuz we were fishing out of snake bay just south of souix narrows and traveled n.w. up past chilsom island 2 days in a row.there was no way in hell i would of been able to do that without the map!when we got there i was running down humps out in the middle of big water like i put them there. several years ago i found some sunken brush piles in lake rathbun and was able to put them on the map so next time down there they’ll be cake to find.i just can’t say enuf good stuff about them!anybody fishing for $ is at a distint disadvantage if they are without it and somebody else has it.

Someone had asked about which units can use Navionics. The new Humminbird’s (the Matrix series) are also compatible with Navionics. Although I have not used one myself we have sold quite a few already. They look to be nice units. I’d be interested in hearing if anyone has used the new Matrix with the Navionic charts. If so, what were the results?

Thanks!

Hey Rudy, How detailed are they on the chip? What are the major lakes in Iowa and Minnesota on the chip? Is pool 4 Mississippi River on the chip? Is the stand alone unit GPS only and does not have a biult in locator also. Sorry for all the questions but I’m a river rat looking for some lake stuff too but am new to the mapping stuff. Thanks, Bill

Here’s the link to the lakes in IA and Minnesota (chip #10).

Navionics – Iowa & Minnesota Chip Details

Pool 4 is included.

Good Fishin’!

Thanks Wade. Bill

the stand alone unit is gps/mapping only.i have the lowrance 3200 on display [$375] and it seems to work great.easy to run with a 5 inch lighted screen.i’m sure there are other stand alone units that use the chips also.

sorry bill i forgot to add a comment about the detail of the maps.they are dead nuts on!if there is someting there its on the map and you can run right to it.i used the map to find several small humps that a guide told me i’d never find.[first of all he told me i’d never find my way to and from that part of the lake]they were about 25 miles from camp so i zoomedin on that part of the lake,found them on the map, plotted a course of travel,ran to the first spot like i was a bright orange beacon on the water,threw a buoy and soon netted a 25″ fish for my wife.repeated that process for 2 entire days but the 25 was our biggest. still, it was unbeleivable that you can locate spots and navigate a place like l.o.t.w. with ease.

What brand of chip are you running? I have a Lowrance Global Map 2400. Will it work on this unit?

Thanks guys for all the info. Where else can a person go and get honest friendly answers with no bickering about brands etc.? Answer-No where else. Thats one of the many things thats great about this site. Thanks, Bill

Zamer,

I believe most/all Lowrance GPS will run Navionics charts. I haven’t sold a 2400 but check this link Lowrance 2400 info and you may want to shoot the Lowrance tech support an email to be sure.

Good Luck!

Rudy I totaly agree with you these chips are a great help on lakes a guy has never fished before. I went to lake OSAKIS this summer the chip made it very easy to find any hump or deep hole on the lake.

This is going to sound like a very dumb question but here goes. I have the Lowrance 3200 Global Map unit on my boat and have the # 10 chip and love it. Works great. But I have never used it without the chip and with the freezing weather we have outside I won’t be using it for awhile. My question is how do people like it who have used it for trolling with the plotter without the chip? I guess I can’t wait til spring to find out myself so I thought I’d ask. I hear some units work better than others so I wanting to know how well people like this unit without the chip in it. Thanks, Bill

Jumping in a little late in the string but … can you guys using the chips with maps right on your locaters download info to the computer and back again? I’m using a handheld Magellan 315 and Lakemaster Software which allows me to dump points for a given lake into the handheld. It, too, is “nuts on” but I still have to deal with a paper copy for reference. The only other downside is that Lakemaster’s data interface, quite frankly, sucks eggs. Once they include some mechanism to dump points into Access or Excel the only thing I’d miss is having the countours right on my X97. But for price ($150 for the Magellan and $100 in software) you can’t beat the portability — getting in another guy’s boat who doesn’t have the electronics. And then there’s the hard water of these long frigid months…

jhinty,

You hit the nail on the head. I will use a handheld GPS as it gives you the portability and can be used for hunting and fishing. As far as all the guys who love their chips that is fine but the companies will only make the chips for the large lakes because there isn’t enough money in the small ones. Even LakeMaster only has 255 lakes which gives only a fair at best coverage of MN. Check out http://kirsch.netfirms.com
They can calibrate over 4000 lakes and you don’t have to buy 255 when you only want 3 or 10 or whatever number you want. It does what LakeMaster does only better and is compatible with just about any GPS ever made. Good fishing.

I have some of Kirsch’s maps and they are great. I wanted some small panfish lakes that didnt have GPS made for them. Kirsch did them up and I just downloaded the software within 5 minutes I was using and looking at my maps.

Derek,

Thanks for the endorsement. Let me know if you ever need any more.

I have to agree. If you are looking for a GPS map for those “hard-to-find” lakes give Kirsch a shout. He set me up with some maps of SD that are excellent.

Kirsch, Is there anyway you can do a screen shot and post a sample map with all the features at the top of the map? I tried it and I can only save just the map as a bmp file.

Derek, you can see some basic things by the image below. The yellow areas are the waypoints that I marked on the map. The red lines are the tracks/boat path I took when fishing and you can even see where I drove out from the access. The green box is a comment I put on the map. The drop down box shows just a few features when sending data to and from your GPS.

The best way to find out information is to go to http://kirsch.netfirms.com/products.htm . However, here is a short list of the top 6 things people use my maps for:

1) Selecting fishing locations by simply clicking on any spot on the map amd uploading it to your GPS. FYI: it doesn’t overwrite the waypoints on the GPS, just adds to them.

2) Waypoint management by copying waypoints from and to the GPS and managing their attributes.

3) Ability to transfer tracks to and from the GPS. This would allow you to chart a path to a fishing spot, plan a trolling pass and upload it, or save a good trolling pathfrom your GPS to the map to see where you were trolling and save it for later use.

4) Ability to print maps in a variety of forms.

5) Measure distance on the map to a fishing spot, length of a piece of structure and much more.

6) Real-time map tracking if you wish to take your notebook computer along so you can see your actual movement on the lake.

These are just a few of the things you can do with the software and map. If any of you have any questions, feel free to PM me or check out the website and use the contact information there to get in touch with me.

Thanks again Scott and Derek for talking about these maps. Maybe we can bring these maps up as a seperate thread in the future with a title something like “GPS Lake maps for over 4000 MN lakes”