Navionics : an essential tool!

For a long time now, I always prospected my fishing spots with bathymetric maps issued by the government or various sports outlets. These paper maps were very useful to track different structures and to know the specific depth of a lake. Up until recently, I was getting my gears ready at home and preparing for my next fishing day with those paper maps, and once I reached my favorite spot, I would work with my portable sonar ton confirm my research. But a few years ago, I started prospecting with electronic maps from my portable GPS. Wow! What a change! From that moment, on-site prospecting was greatly sped up, and a lot more precise. I now work with the best electronic maps from my GPS and my cellphone: Navionics maps! For those who don’t know about Navionics, they are the technology leaders in marine, ski, cycling and hiking electronic mapping. The apps for the 3 last ones are free. For small hand-help GPS or those installed on an ATV or snowmobile, an SD Navionics + card must be inserted in the GPS to have access to all charted lakes in Canada and the USA. Navionics+ SD cards are available in many fishing, sports and marine stores. The use of electronic maps on a cellphone or a tablet is now very popular in ice fishing. All you need to do is to download the Navionics app on your portable device. As far as ice fishing goes, use the Boating US&Canada app. With the iSO Apple on iPad or iPhone, all you need to do is to download the app in your App Store. Look for Navionics apps. For Android devices, you can download the app in Google Play Store, under Navionics’. The Boating US&Canada app will only cost you $16.99$, and you’ll be amazed by the precision and the image quality you’ll get for thousands of lakes all across Quebec, Canada and the USA. What’s even more interesting, you can use the app without any Internet connexion. You can also mark all your waypoints for your favorite spots. It’s user friendly and the menu bar at the bottom of the screen gives you a lot of options. For me, Navionics is now an essential tool for all my explorations… and obviously plays a huge role in my fishing performance!

By David Vadnais