Fish Finders with Bathymetric maps of Twin Valley Reservoir, Pine Coulee, McGregor

[cgb]

Do any fish finders have bathymetric maps of Twin Valley, Pine Coulee or McGregor?

I've only fished these place a few times (mainly for pike, but have went walleye as well), and find that weeds become a big problem later in the summer. Wondering how useful is autochart for mapping and fishing weedlines on these lakes later in the year?

Does Lowrance or Garmin have any features for mapping weedlines?

[calgarygringo]

Autochart is a good option on Bird if you have the time to do it. Go to C map Genesis and you can use maps people have done themselves. You will need a Lowrance finder to download them but they work well and are way more accurate than maps on the Navionics software.

[pikergolf]

Originally Posted by cgb

Do any fish finders have bathymetric maps of Twin Valley, Pine Coulee or McGregor?

I've only fished these place a few times (mainly for pike, but have went walleye as well), and find that weeds become a big problem later in the summer. Wondering how useful is autochart for mapping and fishing weedlines on these lakes later in the year?

Does Lowrance or Garmin have any features for mapping weedlines?

I use i-navigate on my tablet. You can plot a path. I find their maps quite detailed.

[Walleyedude]

Originally Posted by cgb

Do any fish finders have bathymetric maps of Twin Valley, Pine Coulee or McGregor?

I've only fished these place a few times (mainly for pike, but have went walleye as well), and find that weeds become a big problem later in the summer. Wondering how useful is autochart for mapping and fishing weedlines on these lakes later in the year?

Does Lowrance or Garmin have any features for mapping weedlines?

There are pretty detailed maps available on www.genesismaps.com. You can look at them, even print off a paper copy, but in order to be able to use them on your sonar unit, you'll need a Lowrance sonar.

There's also an option within Genesis maps to record and upload your sonar data, and have a custom map created. Within that system, you can create maps with a vegetation layer. They're helpful, but weeds aren't like rocks, they're not always in the same place all the time.

If you're trying to map out the edge of weed beds, side imaging is your best friend. A simple and quick way to do it is to drive the outside of the weed bed and put some waypoints or icons down along the weed edge as you're driving.

If you're running a Lowrance unit, there's a much better way to do it though. Drive the edge of the weed bed using your SI, and use the "structure overlay" feature to create an overlay of the structure/weed edge on top of your map from the SI data. That creates a highly detailed map of the weed edge that you can save, and toggle on/off as desired. It's takes a little effort and a learning curve, but whether it's a weed edge or a specific piece of structure, you can create a near photo like image with a little time. It's not necessarily feasible for large areas, but for the "spot on the spot" or a section of a weed edge, it's pretty powerful.

[kouleerunner]

Originally Posted by cgb

Do any fish finders have bathymetric maps of Twin Valley, Pine Coulee or McGregor?

I've only fished these place a few times (mainly for pike, but have went walleye as well), and find that weeds become a big problem later in the summer. Wondering how useful is autochart for mapping and fishing weedlines on these lakes later in the year?

Does Lowrance or Garmin have any features for mapping weedlines?

Garmin uses Navionics, comes preloaded with canadian lakes, pretty good mapping of all 3. The autochart function definitely helps. you can also do contour shading if you want to find areas of interest. i.e if you know weed line is at 20 ft, shade 0 to 20ft as yellow. change as necessary as summer progresses. it will be dependent on the unit you are using. Newer units and higher end units are better mapping.

The Navionics App also has the contour maps if you want use your phone, not the head unit.

I used to use the Lowrance Genisis maps and social maps, but upgraded to Garmin for the live imaging but have gotten away from relying on mapping. i also found a way to put arcGIS imagery on the Lowrance, used that way more than contour maps.

[cgb]

Curious which you would get and why? I will mainly be pike fishing on one of the three reservoirs listed above. Really interested in getting a fish finder with sidevu and mapping capabilities. Had a lot of fun last summer in MB using a Bird to map structure and catch walleyes. That sure added to the experience. I'm not sure a fish finder will be nearly as useful for pike, but I'm intrigued.

The fish finders that have caught my attention are:

Garmin Echomap UHD 95SV with GT54 & Canadian LakeVu: $1099.99

Elite12 TI2 with 3 in 1 transducer with US Inland Maps: $1299

Garmin Echomap UHD 75SV with GT54 & Canadian LakeVu: $800

I don't think any of these units will come with decent maps of these lakes; perhaps the Social Maps will be OK. That doesn't bother me too much, because I have a few places I typically can catch fish and I don't mind mapping as I fish.

I'm leaning towards the Garmin. I believe it has a newer generation transducer than the Elite (but not 100% certain). Even though the GT54 is being replaced by the GT56, it seems like the GT54 is still a very good transducer. Plus, the Garmin are Livescope capable and I don't believe the ELITE is. I would also be a embarrassed to have a 12" screen on my old boat because it doesn't fit my image.

Curious about other thoughts. The sales end in a week. I suspect other fish finders will go on sale, so I don't know if there is any urgency to get one. But it seems like decent sales so I maybe should buy.

[kouleerunner]

I have the Echomap UHD 95sv with the gt54 transducer, and livescope. Get the 95 if you have the $$. Has Navionics Canada pre installed . The gt56 would be a nice to have but the 54 does well. I can see everything. Either makes your own maps. The larger screen makes. Huge difference. The elite is a good, but overpriced (I used to be a huge Lowrance fan, still Have an HDS with side imaging, Garmin has overtook them). Also, livescope is much better than active target for live imaging.

Bottom line, if cost is not a concern, and you are thinking about live imaging in the near future, get the 95sv.

[Walleyedude]

Originally Posted by cgb

Curious which you would get and why? I will mainly be pike fishing on one of the three reservoirs listed above. Really interested in getting a fish finder with sidevu and mapping capabilities. Had a lot of fun last summer in MB using a Bird to map structure and catch walleyes. That sure added to the experience. I'm not sure a fish finder will be nearly as useful for pike, but I'm intrigued.

The fish finders that have caught my attention are:

Garmin Echomap UHD 95SV with GT54 & Canadian LakeVu: $1099.99

Elite12 TI2 with 3 in 1 transducer with US Inland Maps: $1299

Garmin Echomap UHD 75SV with GT54 & Canadian LakeVu: $800

I don't think any of these units will come with decent maps of these lakes; perhaps the Social Maps will be OK. That doesn't bother me too much, because I have a few places I typically can catch fish and I don't mind mapping as I fish.

I'm leaning towards the Garmin. I believe it has a newer generation transducer than the Elite (but not 100% certain). Even though the GT54 is being replaced by the GT56, it seems like the GT54 is still a very good transducer. Plus, the Garmin are Livescope capable and I don't believe the ELITE is. I would also be a embarrassed to have a 12" screen on my old boat because it doesn't fit my image.

Curious about other thoughts. The sales end in a week. I suspect other fish finders will go on sale, so I don't know if there is any urgency to get one. But it seems like decent sales so I maybe should buy.

I'm a Lowrance guy, but depending on your future plans, you might want to take a pass on that Elite TI2. The pros are it's a 12" touch screen for the same price as the other 7" screens on your list. Screen size does matter, especially if you use a lot of multi-panel displays or spend a lot of time with side imaging. It has live mapping, the "latest" (until about a month ago) version of the Active Imaging 3in1 transducer that's a HUGE improvement over the previous Totalscan, and it can be connected to a second Elite TI2 to share mapping and 2D sonar wirelessly.

However, it is at least one model generation old, and like you mentioned, it is NOT capable of displaying live sonar (Active Target), and does not have the ability to connect to other Lowrance sonar units via ethernet to share mapping and sonar data.

If you're thinking Lowrance, I'd be focused on the Elite FS 7 ($1100) or 9 ($1300), they're the latest and greatest at that price point. No sales at the moment, they were on sale in early January, but they'll be on sale again. Once the new HDS Pro and Active Target 2 units start hitting the shelves in the next little while, there'll be some good sales on the HDS Live units and the original Active Target that will be worth watching out for too. If/when the Elite FS9/Active Target bundle goes on sale, that'll be the one to grab!

There's no doubt that the new sonar units and all their capabilities, no matter what brand you end up, can really add to the experience and help you catch more fish.

[SNAPFisher]

Originally Posted by Walleyedude

There are pretty detailed maps available on www.genesismaps.com. You can look at them, even print off a paper copy, but in order to be able to use them on your sonar unit, you'll need a Lowrance sonar.

On the website, what depth measurement is that? Checked the FAQ and it says nothing. Guessing in meters but so far that doesn't seem to add up.

[Walleyedude]

Originally Posted by SNAPFisher

On the website, what depth measurement is that? Checked the FAQ and it says nothing. Guessing in meters but so far that doesn't seem to add up.

I'm pretty sure it's in meters on the website when you're looking at Canadian lakes. Looking at a couple lakes (Travers and Newell), it seems to add up, at least going by memory of what the depths are in ft.

You have the option of downloading the maps in m or ft, down to a 1ft contour interval.

[cgb]

Thank you to everyone for the feedback/information.