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| Got a Lakemaster chip for my new Helix and one thing it discusses is using different color to define different depths, such as red for shallow areas, as the user defines shallow. Don't really know what I would use it for but wondered if I would be missing out on something useful if I did not choose to use. |
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Posts: 1192
| I too am interested in what others have to say. I got new Helix units over the winter, and got the Minnesota and Wisconsin maps from Lakemaster, right off of the bat since I find myself in the bay of Green Bay, as well as several lakes here in Minnesota, quite often. I got to play with the mapping, a bit, in winter, as my bowmount, is the 7" all season, which I used while ice fishing. I have only been on four bodies of water, so far, in the soft water season, so i don't have much experience with the mapping, yet. So far, I really like setting the red shallow water, for the body of water I am on. On my local lake, I set it at 3', as I really know the lake and it's hazards. When I was on Green Bay, I set it at 8', as I was familiar enough with the area i was fishing, to know that there were many boulders and rock hazards, that spike up near the surface, when in 6 or 7' of water, so it was a good reminder to pay particular attention. I also found using the green highlight for a particular depth range, when you have found that the fish are in that depth, and you want to focus your trolling/drift paths on a that specific depth. So far, I see myself using the shallow water highlight for safety, and the green, for showing me places I want to consider fishing. Again, I've only had a few chances to really play with it.
Edited by TCESOX 5/13/2021 8:07 PM
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Posts: 18
| I use mine all of the time. I set my shallow water highlight to 5 feet. This way when I am up on plane I can easily see where the shallow water is when navigating. I set the green highlight from 6 to 18 feet which is pretty much the weed line on the primary lake I fish. I will adjust it as needed for other lakes. It makes it real easy to see the areas I choose to target when trying to find a new spot or just while casting and setting my distance from structure. It is very useful in finding flats, extended points, etc... |
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Posts: 4269
Location: Ashland WI | I use mine as well.
I set the red (shallow water) to 2'. On the lake I usually fish, the weed edge is at about 7-8 FOW. I set the green color to that. Then I can take a quick glance and see where the wee edge is in relation to my boat. |
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| Thanks for the replies. The chain I live on is shallow but I can see some ways I could use the color shading. The red for shallow would be useful for sure. I know the water but there are just enough spots that it would be good to have. |
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Posts: 408
Location: MN | In my opinion, this is a very useful feature for quickly telling where you are in relation to a depth of interest. I'm not familiar with the Helix setup, but on my Garmins you can do up to 10 ranges. Here's what I have for ranges and how I use them:
0-2: shallow water
2-5: shallow sand, 5 ft is roughly inside weed edge on one lake I fish a lot
5-8: area just on weed side of the inside edge or the outside weed edge on dark lakes
8-12: area just outside weeds on darker lake, weed edge on some lakes, shallow reefs some lakes
12-16: similar
16-20: similar
20-25: outside weed edge on clear lakes, mid depth reefs
25-40: area just outside weeds on clear lakes, deeper reefs
40-60: hard/soft transition occurs at approx. 40 ft depth on many lakes I fish
60+: deepest water (I adjust this to specific lake - may be 40, 50, 70, etc.) - often where cold water bait is concentrated when water gets warm |
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Posts: 2283
Location: Chisholm, MN | Very useful for boat control and quickly finding new spots. Just like the others have said. |
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Posts: 1209
| You want to set them up to help features jumping off the screen at you wether it is a shallow flat coming from shore or a steep drop next to shore or out from the bank. Or a big flat out deep, or humps, points and or turns.
My advice is set shallow water highlights at 5' This will work on 1' contours as well as 5', but when the lake is a 3' contour it defaults to 6' so it's only 1' different. Works good.
I then personally set up depth highlight at 12+-2 === 10-14' green or on 3' contours 9-15 or 5' 10-15.
Then from here the next setting is depth contrast or something like that. I set it at 2, this makes the white for shallow to dark roll over the edge pretty sharp at 20' so my map is from shore to the middle- red white green verylightbabyblue to dark blue at 20'. |
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