GPS Chips...

[Luv2angle]

First off...it's wonderful to see all the cold weather coming in t town! Love it! The reason I was posting is to get a little help on GPS components. What would be the best chip to use just in MN, a Navionics has some more lakes on it, but I dont need all the Midwest! All I would really need it for is some local lakes, and a few up north by Mille Lacs! Anybody have advice?

[harvey lee]

For many Mn lakes I use the Lakemaster chip.If you do a search for Lakemaster and Navonics,you will get most of all the info you need to make your decision.It all depend on where you are going to fish.Each chip has its ups and downs.

If you look in the Equipment forum a page back you will see this topic was just discussed and you may find all the answers you are looking for.

Welcome to HSO and Fishing MN.You have found a great wealth of info and many people willing to share thier info with you.

[Bobb-o]

Look at both chips and see which one has more of the lakes that you will be fishing. Also i think Navionics can add the DNR maps of lakes to your chip when you order it. I am still trying to figure out from someone if i can add DNR maps to Mapcreate.

[LMITOUT]

I went with the Lakemaster because Navionics wouldn't produce a chip that was compatable with the X-15 that I had in my boat while Lakemaster did. That made for an easy decision, not to mention the number of lakes they have and now even more with version II of the MN chip which I hope to buy soon!

So, depending on if you plan on using the chip in a boat you should verify that it will work there as well. It's nice to be able to pop the chip out of the X-15 at the end of the year right into the handheld and away you go.

[iffwalleyes]

I have both and like both. The thing I found was the navionic chip covered more area meaning more states and more lakes that is in the Premium North chip. With that I like the lakemaster chip for strickly MN fishing. They are plug and play instead of having to go into the menus and load the lake map area you want. They also have all of the roads in MN listed on the chip as well as many points of interest. So for a multi MN use the lakemaster is better. But if you go into the dakotas, Wi, Mi, Ia as well as MN then Navionics might be your baby.

[Hotspotter]

The lakemaster does some of the bigger lakes like Mille Lacs better, IMO. Individual waypoints are listed, and part of the chip which makes "goto" navigation much easier if heading out to a big flat for example.

Nav. is my go-to chip however, as it not only has lakes all over the midwest, it has many more in almost all the areas I fish. Granted, many are the DNR maps, but they're typically the best available. It's also very handy to not have to switch chips back and forth when heading to different parts of the state and/or midwest to fish. My personal decision for the fishing I do, would be the Nav. chip if I could only get one, the Lakemaster along with the Nav chip if I could afford both.

Again, as mentioned numerous times above, it depends on where and how you fish!

Joel