H2O Lowrance

[swmetroman]

Just picked up a new H2O. Any recommendations as to which chip to buy for it if I plan to do most of my fishing in MN?

[Ralph Wiggum]

Lakemaster is good.

[PerchJerker]

Your choices are LakeMaster and Navionics. Both companies have the list of lakes on their sites, you should check to see which map card has more of the lakes you fish, and which has more of them in high defintion. I use both.

[Sandmannd]

I like the lakemaster chip. Just personal pref.

[leech~~]

I second Sandman Lake Master! I got my H2O at Cabalas, and the guy actually put in both chips so I could see the same lake on both on a test unit that they had there!

[uppdacreek]

I HAD the Navionics chip in mine. It's the '07 Hotmaps Premium North edition. The maps are easy to read and it has a ridicoulus amount of lakes on it, but the detail is not the greatest on some of the lesser known lakes. 98% of the big lakes, Millacs, Vermillion, Mtka, Prior, P4 and Lake Pepin, etc. are all 1-2ft contours but they aren't always right on the money. I think you will find that with any GPS system from time to time.

Now with that said, I went and got the 2008 MN Lakemaster chip after fishing one day on Pool 4 two weeks ago with a friend of mine who had the LM chip. I spent a good part of the day wasting his battery looking at the difference between the two chips. I had my GPS with the Navionics chip with me, so I was doing a side by side comparison and LM seemed to be much more accurate than my Nav. chip.

[PerchJerker]

That's why you really need to look at the list of lakes too see which one has the high def maps for where you'll be fishing. High def maps will always beat plain jane contour maps, but plain jane contour maps will always beat no map.

I generally prefer LakeMaster, and LakeMaster works better in an H2Oc than Nav due to the zooming, but I fish several lakes that are on the Nav chip that are not on the LakeMaster chip. That's why I use both chips.

To make it even tougher ....... even though LakeMaster has great maps for Mille Lacs, there is an area of the lake where the Nav chip shows structure that is not on the LakeMaster chip That goes both ways of course, there's places where I think LM is better than Nav.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

The Lakemaster chip will zoom in closer then the Navionics. Big advantage IF your lake is on the chip.

[Rippin_eyes]

Actually Navionics zooms in 1/63 which is .o158 and lakemaster zooms into .02 so they are close to the same. The Navionics 09 chip has lake of the woods green bay sag bay all in foot contours this year which is huge.... no more buy and loosing 2 chips......

If you fish the midwest and lake of the woods Navionics is the clear choice to save money....

If you want it more for hunting the Lakemaster has the wma's on it....

Its a matter of preference.... I prefer Navionics I like the way the maps are displayed on the screen better.....

chris

[PerchJerker]

Actually Navionics zooms in 1/63 which is .o158 and lakemaster zooms into .02 so they are close to the same.

Nav will zoom in that close on larger gps units, like permanent mount ones you'd use in a boat or even a 522c that you might take ice fishing, but on handheld units like the H2Oc Nav will only zoom in to 1/8 of a mile.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Nav will zoom in that close on larger gps units, like permanent mount ones you'd use in a boat or even a 522c that you might take ice fishing, but on handheld units like the H2Oc Nav will only zoom in to 1/8 of a mile.

Exactly. A real issue if you ask me, unless you are just boating around. Slow response also.

[swmetroman]

Anyone know if Lakemaster plans to come out with an 09 chip?

[PerchJerker]

I've heard their mapping data is done and turned over to Lowrance, Lowrance hasn't put it out yet. Just a guess, but maybe around May when their new line of Handheld GPS are supposed to be out???

Lowrance Endura GPS Units

[HugoBox]

Ours is a few years old and we actualy have both chips -- neede a few lakes that were on one but not the other... I prefer the Lakemaster chip if you're moving fast as it updates quicker so you'll have less refresh time.

[TruthWalleyes]

I would go with lakemaster chip

[Dan Brelje]

For handheld i would go with the lakemaster. It zooms much closer, this is a great advantage when trying to stay on a spot when fishing structure.

[Eric Wettschreck]

I was recently in this same boat. Like Perchjerker said, go on their HSOforum and see which lakes they cover.

As for me, I went with the Nav chip solely because the nav chip covers a lot more lakes in my area that the LM chip does not.

LM chip doesn't do you any good if it doesn't cover the lake you are on, and vice versa.

[moccasinboy]

Navionics zoom levels are in nautical miles and the scale is 1/2 the horizontal screen on my LCX 28. At the tightest zoom, 1/63nm, thats about 192 ft across the screen. LakeMaster zooms to .04 miles and the scale is the full width of the screen, thats about 211 ft. Navionics has 11 zoom levels that show lake data, LakeMaster has 26 zoom levels that show lake data. Navionics has virtually no dry land information, LakeMaster has a complete background land map. I was using a LakeMaster Woods/Rainy chip and Navionics Premium '09.