Thread: Lakemaster or Navionics?

@scout-j-m, I can give you my take on the subject, I have used both cards for years. I prefer Lakemaster over Navionics on my Humminbird units. I primarily fish the Coosa river and Tennessee river lakes. I am kind of stuck with Navionics on the Coosa, as Lakemaster only has coverage of one lake on the Coosa (Mitchell) as of Version 3 Southeast. I have heard several rumors that Version 4 which should be released in 2016 will include more of the Coosa river lakes but no ones knows for sure and even Humminbird will not comment on future lakes.

Having said that, the Lakemaster cards have excellent coverage for the Tennessee river with Guntersville, Pickwick, Wheeler, Wilson, Chickamauga and Nickajack all in High Definition. I love several features about the Lakemaster cards that are not available on the Navionics cards when running a Humminbird unit. Most notable the ability to highlight a depth range (example highlight 8-12ft water) while still having the ability to highlight shallow water in red (say less than 5ft deep). These are very nice features for me the way I like to target a specific depth to fish. In addition, although you said you do not plan to use it, the Lakemaster card and ipilot link is a game changer with the ability to follow a contour line in autopilot etc.

I have no problem with Navionics especially now that you can get instant updates via the website (free for the first year if you are buying a new card). But the limited ability to highlight depth ranges is disappointing. The only option you have is to highlight from 0 to a certain depth instead of being able to select any range. I typically set mine to about 15ft feet that way it really makes humps pop out nicely in a different color but I like being able to set a range.

Navionics + is their latest product and if you buy that card it will be a 16GB card preloaded with all of North America, but you can also go to the navionics website and download any lake or any number of lakes to your card and unlimited updates (free for the first year). Also They have a new feature where users can record there sonar soundings and upload them on the Navionics site, then all those community recording get incorporated into the next update so the more fisherman that fish your favorite lakes the better coverage and detail you are going to get for those lakes.

Both cards have nice coverage and detail so its really just a matter of what lakes you fish and what features are important to you. If you really plan to never use the ipilot link feature (which I highly recommend that you do) and you do not care about being able to highlight depth ranges then you will be happy with just the navionics card. The "only" thing that I don't like about the Lakemaster cards is that fact that you have to buy a new card every time an update comes out if you want the new features. Other than that and the limited coverage of Alabama Lakes (which is ridiculous since Humminbird is an Alabama based company) I prefer the Lakemaster cards.

Hope this helps