Garmin maps

This last weekend I was on lotw and I will say that the Garmin maps are borderline worthless. The majority of the reefs are either aren’t even close to being accurate or they are not marked at all. This is this first time I have run into an issue with the Garmin lake maps. FYI if you are headed there and are going to fish the reefs you most likely will have an issue.

Which Garmin maps?

The built in maps on the lakes I fished are not very good.

The lakeVu Ultra HD card I have a love hate relationship with.

It does seem that sometimes the map on the lake is way off, like where on the map you should be on the structure your looking for, but really your still 50ft to 200 ft off.

I have gotten into the habit to turn on Quickdraw now as soon as I leave the landing. Another thing that I found out is you should have your SD card your writing to in the same unit your viewing the maps with. The reason there is, if I am mapping with my console unit and then fishing from the bow, it does take a while for the map to refresh on the bow and sometimes seems choppy. I can reproduce the same thing with if I have both at the console.

Also another note which I found out after the fact, if you have the 2017 lakeVu chip, you need to select fishing maps and not nav maps to be able to see the contours.

After using Garmins for a year now, I do like them and really like panoptix for walleye fishing. Sonar picture is awesome. I do think their mapping is somewhat lacking, compared to what lakemaster and navonics already have with HB and Low\Navico

That is my 2 cents.

Maps suck, mapping awesome, sonar awesome.

Next unit will be cheapo sonar gps combo to just run nav+. For $850 not a bad setup originally.

I just have the maps that come on the unit. I did start to map my own but with no idea where the rocks were (I just knew where they were fishing in past years and my waypoints) I ended up getting snagged a few times too many and got frustrated and moved to a different location that I was more familiar with. Trouble is I don’t think you can buy any better maps yet. Like I said this is the first time I have had an issue.

Mocha wrote:

Which Garmin maps?

mojogunter wrote:

I just have the maps that come on the unit. I did start to map my own but with no idea where the rocks were (I just knew where they were fishing in past years and my waypoints) I ended up getting snagged a few times too many and got frustrated and moved to a different location that I was more familiar with. Trouble is I don’t think you can buy any better maps yet. Like I said this is the first time I have had an issue.

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Mocha wrote:</div>
Which Garmin maps?

I purchased the “lakeVu Ultra HD card” and so far have been very happy with it. The stocked maps that I have looked at look quite poor! IMHO

Mocha wrote:

I purchased the “lakeVu Ultra HD card” and so far have been very happy with it. The stocked maps that I have looked at look quite poor! IMHO

I’ve never relied on the base maps but have found the HD ULTRA maps for LOTW to be as good as anything out there. No map company gets everything perfect.

I am not looking for perfection, but at least mark the reefs would be good. I will gladly buy an upgraded map, but like I have said this was the first time I had an issue. I will check that out. Thanks

Do any of you know if the 9 footer is shown on the US side of the border line in the LakeVU chip? It’s shown on the Canadian side with my built-in maps.