Most serious ocean fishermen wouldn’t dream of heading offshore without their high-tech marine electronics, especially their electronic chart plotter and digital cartography. Why? Because they count on their marine chartplotter and electronic charts for a wealth of information that helps them find and catch more fish.
In growing numbers, freshwater anglers are also “tuning in and turning on,” spurred by increasing availability of smaller sized, affordable electronic chart plotters and fishing charts for popular freshwater lakes and rivers. For about the cost of a high-performance stainless prop, freshwater anglers can install a GPS/chart plotter and add satellite boating navigation and detailed waterway maps to their arsenal of weapons.
Today’s best marine GPS receivers can pinpoint your position to within three meters anywhere in the world, allowing you to navigate with accuracy and – most importantly – return to “fishy” areas. And with the proliferation of inexpensive, hand-held GPS units that can fit in a tackle box, many fishermen are “steering by the numbers” to do just this.
Using an electronic chart plotter, however, adds a whole new dimension. Electronic chart plotters add marine map technology capable of showing your boat’s position and movement over a digitized map of the lake or river’s bottom. Depending on the level of detail, this digital cartography can include submerged creek channels, drop-offs, points, brush piles, sunken islands and other structure items that are critical to fishermen.
With a little imagination, it’s easy to see how a real-time representation like this can help the freshwater anglers. By really knowing the layout of the lake and where your boat is positioned in relation to key structure, you can spend more time fishing where the fish are. And by correlating what you see on the electronic chart plotter with information from your depth-sounder, you won’t have to wonder what’s under your boat. In fishing, knowledge is confidence. And confident anglers catch more fish.
Of course, an electronic chart plotter can only provide as much detail as is contained on the digital cartography it is running. Companies like C-MAP have come a long way in the development of extremely detailed electronic charts for the nation’s most popular freshwater fishing areas. The company’s MAX Lakes catalog of specialized freshwater fishing charts was developed with one purpose in mind — to help freshwater anglers catch more fish. Today, C-Map MAX Lakes fishing charts are available covering thousands of popular lakes and waterways in every U.S. state.
There are many ways savvy fishermen use this electronic chart data to their advantage. For example, walleye anglers can use their electronic chart plotters to focus and fine-tune their trolling presentations. Successful walleye trolling is based on precise boat positioning, boat speed and bait presentation, and a plotter gives you an extra high-tech tool. If the fish are hanging along an edge or suspended over an underwater riverbed, you can position your boat precisely, track your progress on the map and make adjustments for wind and current.
Say you’re a bass fishermen, and you’re working a steep drop off a submerged point with a pig-and-jig or live bait. Same idea – you can monitor your boat’s progress in relation to the shoreline and the bottom, and make small adjustments as necessary. And with the accuracy of today’s marine electronic GPS, you can keep working productive water by marking where you hookup and returning to this area through subsequent drifts.
These are just a few of the ways an electronic chart plotter and specialized fishing charts can make a wizard out of any freshwater fisherman. Whether the name of your game is largemouth, walleye, trout, crappie or stripers, C-Map charts will help you catch more fish. Visit your boat dealer or electronics store and get turned on to the world of electronic charts.
In growing numbers, freshwater anglers are also “tuning in and turning on,” spurred by increasing availability of smaller sized, affordable electronic chart plotters and fishing charts for popular freshwater lakes and rivers. For about the cost of a high-performance stainless prop, freshwater anglers can install a GPS/chart plotter and add satellite boating navigation and detailed waterway maps to their arsenal of weapons.
Today’s best marine GPS receivers can pinpoint your position to within three meters anywhere in the world, allowing you to navigate with accuracy and – most importantly – return to “fishy” areas. And with the proliferation of inexpensive, hand-held GPS units that can fit in a tackle box, many fishermen are “steering by the numbers” to do just this.
Using an electronic chart plotter, however, adds a whole new dimension. Electronic chart plotters add marine map technology capable of showing your boat’s position and movement over a digitized map of the lake or river’s bottom. Depending on the level of detail, this digital cartography can include submerged creek channels, drop-offs, points, brush piles, sunken islands and other structure items that are critical to fishermen.
With a little imagination, it’s easy to see how a real-time representation like this can help the freshwater anglers. By really knowing the layout of the lake and where your boat is positioned in relation to key structure, you can spend more time fishing where the fish are. And by correlating what you see on the electronic chart plotter with information from your depth-sounder, you won’t have to wonder what’s under your boat. In fishing, knowledge is confidence. And confident anglers catch more fish.
Of course, an electronic chart plotter can only provide as much detail as is contained on the digital cartography it is running. Companies like C-MAP have come a long way in the development of extremely detailed electronic charts for the nation’s most popular freshwater fishing areas. The company’s MAX Lakes catalog of specialized freshwater fishing charts was developed with one purpose in mind — to help freshwater anglers catch more fish. Today, C-Map MAX Lakes fishing charts are available covering thousands of popular lakes and waterways in every U.S. state.
There are many ways savvy fishermen use this electronic chart data to their advantage. For example, walleye anglers can use their electronic chart plotters to focus and fine-tune their trolling presentations. Successful walleye trolling is based on precise boat positioning, boat speed and bait presentation, and a plotter gives you an extra high-tech tool. If the fish are hanging along an edge or suspended over an underwater riverbed, you can position your boat precisely, track your progress on the map and make adjustments for wind and current.
Say you’re a bass fishermen, and you’re working a steep drop off a submerged point with a pig-and-jig or live bait. Same idea – you can monitor your boat’s progress in relation to the shoreline and the bottom, and make small adjustments as necessary. And with the accuracy of today’s marine electronic GPS, you can keep working productive water by marking where you hookup and returning to this area through subsequent drifts.
These are just a few of the ways an electronic chart plotter and specialized fishing charts can make a wizard out of any freshwater fisherman. Whether the name of your game is largemouth, walleye, trout, crappie or stripers, C-Map charts will help you catch more fish. Visit your boat dealer or electronics store and get turned on to the world of electronic charts.
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