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Posts: 3
| I never thought I needed a GPS until I was lost in a dense fog for abiout 2 hours the other morning. What type of hand held do you users of GPS's recommend? |
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Posts: 239
Location: Madison, WI | I was on Mille Lacs Sunday morning and feel your pain. I would not have been able to launch the boat without my GPS. Nothing fancy, hand held Garmin 72 series. It was a life savor, mark the launch and drive to any rock reef on the lake!
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Posts: 1060
Location: Palm Coast, FL | There are many hand held units on the market. The plain s should work for what you are needing as long as it has some kind of waterway maps. You don't have to have the ones with depth contours. I used to use a handheld a long time ago, but upgraded (big time) to a Lowrance LCX-104C with gps. |
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| Regardless of the GPS you get, keep a compass in your boat all the time. Cheap way to push the probility numbers toward your best interests. |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | No matter the unit, buy one with mapping features. Sure the compass screen is cool and works well, but there's nothing like looking at the screen and knowing where you are in relation to land or objects.
Big Mo and I got fogged in on LVD last year, it was so thick I could barely see him in the boat. I ended up using the gps shore line detail to find our way. No, it's not accurate enough to follow the shorelines exactly, but its a good reference.
I second having a compass in the rig at all times. |
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Posts: 1023
Location: Lafayette, IN | I strongly agree with Ranger. MAKE SURE YOU ALSO HAVE A COMPASS IN THE BOAT. Many of the cheaper units do not have a compass feature so you don't know your heading until you're moving forward. That's too late in some cases. Use the compass to see where you are facing and the GPS will get you home (among other places.)
I own a Magellan Sportrak Map with the basemap of the US. Works great! |
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Posts: 170
Location: Valparaiso , Indiana | I use the Lowrance IFinder Pro. It takes Navionics Lake Map Chips that show depth contours, under water structures and hot spots. It takes Freedom map chips too, for road traveling. They allow you to see all back roads, ditches, railroad tracks, small ponds, creeks as well as all major roads. |
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Posts: 224
Location: Madison | Agree with Gander re: mapping.
Also, if you have a "regular" run on a lake, make sure you learn how to use the trail feature of your GPS and punch it in when you're in good, daylight conditions. I have done this on a 90,000 acre shield lake, and am comfortable running around it in complete darkness. As long as there aren't any moose swimming in my path, I'll be just fine. |
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Posts: 4
| If you do not want to mount a seperate compass in your boat and use Lowrance mounted units, I have the bearing overlay data displayed as analog on my X15. That turns out to be a compass when displayed as analog. Also select Make Transparent, located under Analog Setup. That way you still see what is underneath the compass. This way you can see your mapping chip contours and compass at the same time. Nice feature I just found after seeing it displayed on a guides boat this past fall. |
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