Thread: Built in Contours on Helix?

Originally Posted by rnvinc

Duh !!!

And I even knew that ...

Thanks for the memory jolt Robert ...

Rickie

My turn is just around the corner for sure.....lol

If you purchase the lake master card for your area, you will like that the GPS will show where you are on the lake map you are viewing. You can fallow drop offs or head for deep or shallow water. No guessing.

I had been leaning towards Lakemaster for the reasons you mentioned. Another reason was that I live in North Alabama and the Southeast Lakemaster includes Tennessee but for whatever reason the Navionics Southeast excludes Tennessee yet includes Kansas and Nebraska I think. That's really strange to me. Another factor is that Navionics does have better coverage of Alabama. Lakemaster leaves a lot to be desired in the state which seems odd since Humminbird is based out of Alabama...but maybe that doesn't matter when it comes to Lakemaster products.

Originally Posted by Hanr3

Lakemaster.
They have cool features, like water colors to highlight depths you want to target for fish. Plus you can set a depth to minimum water depth to avoid running aground/eating props. I have mine set at 15' with a 5' span on each side. All water in the 10-20 depth range shows up as blue on my screen. I also have any water under 5' show up as red. Don't drive in the red on plane.

MinnKota trolling motors with IPilot Link can read the Lakemaster maps and follow the contour. Makes staying in that 10-20' zone easy. The trolling motor stays on the contour. If you want, you can also set an offset, say if you want to fish the 15' contour, set your offset to 10' on the right and the trolling motor will always follow the 15' contour line, just 10' to the right side.

Another feature I use is casting rings. When creeping up to a known fish crib I start casting once I hit my casting ring. The ring puts a circle around the brushpile, say 20'. Anywhere outside that 20' circle I can cast to teh center of the circle. If you want to start casting further away and work your way in, set your ring bigger. I used to troll right up on top of the brushpile and wonder why there weren't any fish on it. Now I work the outside edges first and work my way into the middle.

FYI- Humminbird, Lakemaster, MinnKota are all owned by Johnson Outdoors. All three products are designed to work together and they make some accommodations to function with competitor brands. I wish they would make the MinnKota trolling motors with DI transducers instead of the US2 (2d).

Originally Posted by scout-j-m

Thanks for the help guys. Maybe this thread will be helpful to others.

.

Yup, it is helpful to others. I read it and had to set up my Helix 10 to check and sure enough, a few of the bigger lakes and some of the more popular lakes here are included; I wouldn't have known that without this thread. Wasn't a factor in my purchase so I must have glanced right over this feature when comparing.