Garmin handheld GPS Question

[luvtofish]

I have a Garmin eTrex Summit Hc handheld and was thinking about buying the Inland Lakes Map Cd. Does anyone here have any experience with this unit and the lakes map. I only have a small 14 alum. boat that I fish out of and it already has 2 Hummingbird fish finders. One on transom and one on trolling motor and both work great just no GPS capability. Was thinking about using my had held for something more than marking structure. Any responses appreciated.....

[jmack]

luvtofish, i have the inland lake map cd. its quite detailed. it is in my handheld garmin 76csx. i used it for about a year when i didnt have maps in my fishfinder. i made a little bracket and mounted it with a ram mount to the fishfinders bracket. it's detail was, and is actually better than the current navionics map of my home lake, which is not in hi def yet. I haven't used the Summit, but i believe you have about 24 megs of memory space, that should hold quite a bit of area maps. One good thing of having the CD, is that you can have the same maps on the Summit as you have on your PC at home, or work, and transferring your waypoints and routes to your PC is a big plus when your preplanning a trip. good luck. jm

[luvtofish]

Thanks jmack, have been thinking about doing it for some time. Really hate to invest in a depthfinde/gps combo when I have 2 perfectly good depthfinder now. I went with a fishing partner the other day and he had an Eagle and I really like the gps feature because my home lake has some areas of old channel that are not part of the marked boat runs in the lake. I know the general areas they run, but without any specific features to actually be able to follow the channels u can get into a lot of underwater stumps quick and believe me there are a lot of them in there.

[luvtofish]

Any more help appreciated...

[slimeyslab]

I have a HB 797 and 787 mounted in my boat. I still only use my Garmin 400I for the GPS. It has the maps built in and they are great and very detailed. I am hoping that the new HB software upgrades will allow me to leave my Garmin at home.

[TN Hillbilly]

I have a garmin 76csx and the older lake map set "US Recreational lakes with fishing hotspots v5.0". It has decent detail but the contour interval is 10 ft. 5ft would be better. It does allow you to find secondary channels, and the navigational info (channel marks) are great when running the lake at night. The lake I fish most often has a lot of winding channels and you can get in trouble quick if you don't stay in the channel. Like jmac said it's nice to have the same maps on a pc where you can pick out likely looking bottom contours then transfer the waypoints to your handheld. I've made some custom maps of my farm for the garmin and want to try to make some of the lake if I can ever find the bottom contour data online. It'd be nice to make maps with a much finer contour, maybe 3 ft. That'd let you pick out finer ditches and drains that wouldn't show up with the 10ft contour interval.

[luvtofish]

Thanks TN Hillbilly. I have a lake map that has a lot of the contour lines marked, but the marked boat runs don't always follow the channels. Also a lot of the channel runs acroos open water. I would mostly like it for that reason and also the secondary creek channels. Only problem is the dvd only has 2 lakes that I fish and only one of them routinely and the other just occasionally....