Been thinking about purchasing this for years as well. I love looking at lake maps, but most of the paper ones aren’t that detailed, and looking at my phone or handheld gps is rough on the eyes after awhile. Would love to hear a review from somebody who actually owns it as far as detail and ease of use.
Nathan
Here is my review.
I think it is worth the money.
My understanding is that CE uses the same high definition lakes that are on a lake master chip. What I like about the software is that it allows you to explore a lake. Plot target points and create a game plan for how you are going to attack a lake.
It also has a nice fish search feature that allows you to ask the software of what species you want to fish, the time of year and time of day and other parameters. Once you enter the information you press search and it will high-lite in red places you should try. This gives you a good starting point. You can then create target points and transfer the points to my Humminbird 898, 788, and Minnkota I pilot link trolling motor. I have configured my 788ci to be used ice fishing. (It works oK but prefer my LX7 for the sonar). I used the 788 as a GPS. It is cumbersome because it is big with the ice pack. It would be great if Humminbird made a handheld but they don’t.
In my opinion transferring the way points to a Hummingbird is complicated and it should be easy but it’s not. At least for me.
Step 1 pick your spots
Step 2 save as a humminbird file (I can’t remember the file extension)
Step 3 open the file with Humminbird PC (this always asks to save the above file as a .gpx but whenever I do that it does not work. I save as a .gpx it never works so I have to save as humminbird file and the Humminbird PC software saves it as a .gpx file.
Once saved to an sd card you but into your humminbird and it will load the way points. Personally I think you should not have to use Humminbird PC if you save it as a hummingbird extension.
While it is somewhat cumbersome to save targets (waypoints) there is nothing else out there that is quite like it.
What I wish it would do is save all the highlighted areas and transfer them to the SD card. I have to sit there and make a bunch of dots to fill up the shaded highlighted areas and then transfer them it is a pain in the butt.
You are supposed to also be able to connect your GPS to the computer and your screen becomes a large screen GPS this I have not figured out how to do. The company that makes the product is called strategic fishing systems. They have no phone number for tech support you have to email your questions to them.
Personally I think most people (myself included) only use about 30% of the functionality. The software is very powerful but you have to be pretty tech savy to exploit it. The documentation and website is weak on support and FAQ’s. I thought maybe I will give them a call but there is no phone number on their website.
