electronics What are the best mapping and sonar for toledo bend and southeast texas

Looking to buy new units because I'm tried of the basic maps being so far off any suggestions? electronics

Do you want Humminbird, Lowrance or Garmin? If you want Humminbird, the best bang for the buck is the Helix models. They start at 5" and go to 12" Then you have sonar, down imaging and side imaging. Humminbird uses either the lakemaster maps or navionics. Generally speaking, the larger the screen the better it is to read. You really need to narrow down your question a bit more as to what you are wanting and what price range you want to stay in.

What units do you have now? You can usually just get a map chip. Most factory maps aren't that great with garmin being the exception but with them you don't have any options except their maps. Lowrance runs navionics and birds will run lake master or navionics.

If I recall correctly, all map cards suck for Toledo because of all the timber keeps the boats from properly scanning the lake.

If you want flexibility with your mapping options, as stated above, you will want to stick to Lowrance, Humminbird or Raymarine. All of those units give you multiple mapping options with all of the 3 taking Navionics mapping as their common. Some of the maps are better than others and that is somethign you should look at the areas you fish vs the mapping available to decide which you feel is best for you. You can view the mapping available from Navionics at:
http://webapp.navionics.com/#boating

Also, there is still work to be done, but the issue with the mapping in the timber at Toledo has been helped tremendously with the Navionics Sonar Chart program, not saying all areas are covered or perfect, but have been improved very much. To see the difference just toggle the sonar charts layer on and off while looking at Toledo Bend on the Webapp above.

Lowrance on boat now looking at deep water and canal mapping.

Your best bet with lowrance is navionics and keeping the chip updated. If you have a touch unit you can record while you are out and upload it to get more sonar mapping updates. I won't lie though, I run lowrance and navionics but I won't do their mapping for them so I don't blame anyone else who won't. Other manufactures let you create your own maps and keep them to yourself.

Many of the maps are correct for the boat lane locations on T-bend but the standard deviation built into the GPS systems causes them to look like they are floating around. The bast way to run Toledo bend is pay attention to the marker buoys. Run directly from buoy to buoy (dont' cut corners) and then follow your trails in the future. I think T-bend from dam to Logansport is much more easier to run than Sam Raybure is from the dam to the bridge. THe difference is marked (and maintained) boat lanes.