Lowrance HDS-8 Base USA, Maps?

[justinp61]

I'm looking to purchase a Lowrance HDS-8 Base USA. Who has the best maps?

[CatFan]

Depends a lot on the lakes ou fish. Personally, I'd get the Lake Insight chip for the unit. I have the built in Insight, which is good, but I hear what's on the chip works at better zoom levels.

[justinp61]

Kentucky, Barkley and possibly Smithland pool. I can be in anyone of the three in about 15 minutes.

[CatFan]

Kentucky, Barkley and possibly Smithland pool. I can be in anyone of the three in about 15 minutes.

First of all, I hate you for living that close to all that good fishing. :p

I really like my Lake Insight on Kentucky and Barkley. I'd have gotten the chip instead of the built-in, but I couldn't find the chip in stock where I could get it locally. The 3D shading is really nice trying to find a channel going into west side bays on KY, and can really make it easy to visualize points and ledges.

[justinp61]

Thanks, I didn't mention that I could be in the Tennessee River in 5 minutes and the Ohio And Cumberland rivers in 10:D.

[beagle man]

lake insight mine is built in the unit and it works great in the missouri waters.

[tripp@BOEmarine]

Navionics makes the maps for the HDS system. From my experience they are still building their database of lake surveys, and the list of available lakes http://http://www.navionics.com/Lake...HMPlatinum.asp is pretty impressive. If you don't see your favorite lake, you can call Navionics and they will send you a screen shot! Try it, it is convincing.

[beagle man]

tripp is correct, I forgot I have the nav.platinum in the front locator, verry detailed, and when you zoom in still see everything, either one will work great.

[justinp61]

Thanks guys, it looks like the base map is the way to go.

[tripp@BOEmarine]

Just as a heads-up, base maps are pretty useless. All of the shoreline is geometric (no contours, just straight lines). We ususally sell the base map with a chart card. That gives the best chartset. The insight is much better, but still not a lot of detail compared to the chart card. I will try to post some screen shots as examples.