I purchased my first GPS fish finder in December (Humminbird 898ci SI). I decided to wait for the new Lakemaster MidSouth chip. All the different Navionic chips seemed too intimidating. However, while I was waiting for Lakemaster's MidSouth...I purchased Navionics for my iphone.

Today I received my MidSouth card and I am sad to say, Navionics on my iphone has much more stuff identified! If I take back my MidSouth card, how should I decide which Navionics card to get? Or should I give the MidSouth card more of a chance?

What lakes are you fishing ?

what kind of stuff are you referring to ? and which lake ?


Would love to see a pic.

You also get to update your Navionics Premium and Platinum Chips for a year after purchase at no charge via their webiste. Another benefit with Navionics Platinum purchases coming soon will be the no charge SONAR CHARTS. I liked your more 'intimidating' comment, because in most cases Navionics does have more data.

I'll take some pics later this afternoon and probably make a video to go with it. I fish the DFW area. Hubbard, Tawakoni, Pool, Texoma, Grapevine. However, I even looked up Lake Waxahachie. My Navionics app shows a brush pile that the LM chip doesn't even have.

Your post got me curious, so using the Navionics webapp, I compared the two maps looking at spots I knew.

It does look like for Ray Hubbard Navionics, calls out more buoys, creek channels, flooded timber, fish attractors etc. The Navionics map also calls out submerged bridges where my lakemaster on my 998 just showed a road crossing a creek bed. The Lakemaster on Ray Hubbard seemed to have most of the creeks and road beds, but not as many details for flooded timber.

However on Benbrook lake, Lakemaster had creek channels marked out that lined right up with my saved gps points, but the Navionics webapp didn't show any creek channels on Benbrook.


On Grapevine the Navionics called out the old rock crusher north west of twin coves, also showed the marina docks and again had a 1 or 2 more minor creek channels.

On Lake Arlington, lakemaster totally missed the west wall by the old power plant. But lakemaster had contour lines for the cove behind it when Navionics didn't. Lakemaster also shows the creek channel, where Navionics didn't have any creek channel.

So my informal score card.

Ray Hubbard - Navionics has more stuff called out.
Grapevine - Navionics again has more stuff called out.
Benbrook and Lake Arlington - Lakemaster shows the creek channels.

Kind of a bummer, because I really liked the lakemaster features to adjust the lake level and depth shading. I will need more time on the water, to see if the contour lines and depth reading match up and if the Lakemaster features outweigh the missing data points.

At least for now I can see them on the webapp and make notes to check them out on the water.


-later

Doesn't surprise me, Navionics has the Freshest Data!

Navionics was slinging charts out, while Lakemaster was still in diapers!

Thanks MntDew! It's funny the bridge at Hubbard was the first thing I noticed that LM didn't have. Also LM doesn't show the old rail road in Hubbard very well.

Not trying to start a Navionics vs Lakemaster war, just stating the few facts I could see. I don't think either company can say they are the best "freshest" on every lake vs the other, because for me LM has better info on Lake Benbrook and Lake Arlington which are important lakes for me.

On another thread, we looked at Lake Conroe and LM had way more roads and creeks marked compared to Navionics, so it really depends on what lake you want.

I do wish LM would have matched Navionics on Ray Hubbard then it would have been a clean sweep for my 3 lakes.

I do have to give a shout out to Navionics for putting their data out for free on the Web App or very low cost on the smart phones. If I want to look at LM map data on my big PC screen, I have to buy their PC software.

-later

Stay tuned. Those features - plus a few more - will be coming to your Navionics Mobile App in about a week.

Did you look at the "Football" Shaped Icons? These are Points of Interest and you move the Cursor over the Icon and hit the Info or "Checkmark" Button and it will display the Points of Interest data, What it is, GPS Cooridinates, Depth. Here is an image of Ray Hubbard and you can see the POI Icons and Roads and Creek Channels



Here is example of data from the POI Icon



Tawakoni Examples with Road Beds and POI Icon







Grapevine

Hi Doug, I did see the ovals, didn't know to call them POIs. On the 6 or so POI I checked it always just says foundation. I will have to check more. THANKS.


Here is the Navionics web app to match the grapevine map above.. I think this is a good example.



Navionics had bouys and does calls out flooded timber and submerged bridge, but I do like how Lakemaster (which I have) shows the creek bed as pink line. Lakemaster also show another road in the lower right the red line.


In general I like my LM chart and I think some of the extra data points on the Navionics are nice but not critical to fishing. Although i do really like it calling out "flooded timber" on the Navionics.

I WOULD be curious if Navionics looks different on a Chart Unit then it does on the web app.. I really like the creek channels standing out more on the LM map vs the dotted lines.

Anyway .. I only mentioned the things I did to try and help people that maybe on the fence either way. I liked the LM features on my HB and the price was much less then Navionics, so for me it was the correct choice.

-rob

Here is a comparison of the exact same GPS location on Ray Hubbard

cool pic .. thanks.