LakeMaster???

[liketheice]

Place in Warroad told my brother that someone bought out LakeMaster. I did some checking and see Johnsons Outdoors, maker of Humminbird, bought them out. I emailed just to see if they will continue to support Garmin and other handhelds. They replied with.....

"LakeMaster was recently acquired by Johnson Outdoors, maker of Humminbird GPS units. Support for Lowrance and Garmin products must be completed through those respective companies. we no longer manufacture or support those lines of GPS units."

Anyone out there use any other handheld GPS and what lake software do you use for them?

I would like to keep my Garmin Nuvi but can't seem to find the Lake of the Woods map for them. I have the SD card already, but thinking what do I do if for some reason the SD Card quits working. Even their own maps say discontinued and never heard of anyone using the Garmin software so don't know how they are.

[MN Mike]

Garmin released a new Lake Map product called Upper Midwest Fishing Guide. It features over 9500 lakes from 7 States and quiet a few in 1 foot contours. Lake of the Woods is included on this product.

This map should be compatible with your Nuvi.

Check it out at Garmin's site.

I was still seeing Garmin MicroSD Cards up until a couple weeks ago at Scheels, not sure what's left now but I would look around at some of the retailers and see what's out there if you are set on a Lakemaster product.

Mike

[liketheice]

thanks Mike. I took a look and am thinking about getting it as backup or maybe it's better then LakeMaster one. I'll probably get it next month or so. when I do, I'll let everybody know what I think. Now back to the game.

[Boar]

R u kidding me, let me get this straight, I bought a garmin nuvi 1300 for my wifes birthday cause we were going out to WI, Dells. I can get a micro sd card Like the lakemaster LOW an use it in the nuvi? If sothis is way cool.

[Boar]

wow thats cool, just checked it out, but would like to know if LOW come with the countours or how to find out what lakes come with countours.

[MN Mike]

Boar,

If you go to Garmin's site and get to the Upper Midwest Fishing Guide product page, down thru the webpage there is a tab that says Coverage Details. When you click on that a map shows up with the states covered by this product, just above the map there is a link to a Interactive Map, when you open this, it lets you ' test drive ' the product and gives you some idea of the lakes covered. It's not the full blown product but it gives you a taste.

On the Nuvi, by default ( on the ones that I have used ), tracks are disabled, you can enable it if need be, this is the line left on the GPS where you have traveled.

You can mark waypoints on the Nuvis, they call them Favorites and you can back them up to a computer with the help of software programs such as GPSTrackmaker, EasyGPS and several others. If you have waypoints, those can be imported into the Nuvi AND you can manually enter waypoints too.

I have the Garmin Lakemaster Woods / Rainy data card ( which also work in the Nuvi if you can find them ), I can see lake contours on my computer screen with the use of Garmins free program called BaseCamp. You can also mark and upload waypoints using this program so you can do a little pre scouting before you go fishing, that comes in handy sometimes. I would imagine this is the same for the Upper Midwest Fishing Guide.

On the Nuvi and all Garmins for that matter, you can have different detail levels, this will determine how much map detail is shown on your Nuvi, there should be about 5 or 6 settings, the higher the setting the slower the redraw, I've found that sometimes that is not a factor.

You can find the owners manual for your Nuvi on Garmin's site pretty easy, I recommend signing up for a FREE account at the my.garmin website, it keeps your Nuvi up to date with the latest software and you can manage your maps that you purchase there too.

There is more neat stuff you can do too.

Mike

[Boar]

Wow data overload, thanks mike preciate it. Got to the list of lakes but didnt get to interactive page. Is ther a chip for the nuvi with not so much data, i mean for the average guys its over kill, im sure garmine produce it fro the worldly travler whos dose more running around, but Im interested in say just minnesota. Thanks again

[MN Mike]

Garmin itself does not make a Minnesota Only chip, Lakemaster did BUT there was no coverage for Lake of the Woods, you had to purchase that data card separately to the tune of another $100 besides the $100 you would spend to get the Minnesota only data. The Lakemaster cards will be getting harder and harder to find now since they are not being made anymore for Garmin.

This Garmin Chip covers both for $99, so it's your best bang for the buck if you don't already have any data cards.

I think you probably clicked on the column on the right hand side, that only gives you the lakes covered by the chip, if you look to the left, you will see what I was talking about above and being able to demo the mapping data.

Mike

[Boar]

Thanks mike, catually cliked on the blue highlighted list, MN WI Lake of woods/ Rainy, then up popped up the lake an wat county. thanks. So this chips is probably my only option if i want to use the nuvi.

[Boar]

for lake of the woods that is.

[BrdHunter01]

So is garmin going to do a Minnesota only chip? Cuz every region chip (with multiple states) I've tried have been horribly inaccurate!

Lakemaster made the most accurate chips on the market IMO

[MN Mike]

Boar,

I wouldn't say it's your only option because there are probably a few Garmin Lakemaster Woods / Rainy data cards out there yet on the store shelves but when they are gone, that's it.

If you don't want to hunt around for the Lakemaster card, then the Garmin Upper Midwest Fishing Guide is what I would get, I know that if it was me looking for a new data card, this one would be it. In the spring my species of fish I go after starts to change and I would like to have all the lakes covered on one chip.

BrdHunter,

I don't suspect Garmin itself will do a MN only chip BUT you can still probably find some Garmin Lakemaster Minnesota cards out there if you hunted around for them.

I don't have any first hand experience with this Upper Midwest Fishing Guide product yet ( it's only a month old ), so I can't tell you how the accuracy is but there are some people starting to buy this chip, we should hear shortly how accurate it is.

Mike

[h8go4s]

Is the Nuvi 1300 waterproof? Find out before you take it fishing, especially if it's your wife's.

[MN Mike]

No, the 1300 is not waterproof, same goes for all other Nuvis except the Nuvi 500 and 550's those 2 are waterproof.

Mike

[Boar]

OK thanks mike,is the UMWFG card comparabel to say the H2o lakemaster card? Contour, definition ect, Id like a lakemaster card, could I lookat the lowrance site? Thanks for ur help. My main object is just to keep it in the gimble moutn in the truck no real need to take it out of the truck to find contour an depth. So water proof is not a nessessary thing in my book h8go4's, wen i use my lowrance it's just to find the dpth im looking for an inside turns Ect.. Later baor

[MN Mike]

is the UMWFG card comparabel to say the H2o lakemaster card? Contour, definition ect,

I wish I could say but since it's so new I haven't seen it yet.

FYI, Reeds has the card for $89 with free shipping.

Mike

[Boar]

SSSHHHHHH! Thanks mike for allur help, Later baor

[Boar]

I actually found a garmin lakemaster chip on amazon ut found out that it has 3 ft contours, Not wat im looking for. I was able so view a sample on reeds site of the umwfg an the difinition looks great on 1 ft contours, I would hope it includes LOW, being one of the most popular destination for lakes in MN.

[Boar]

LOW in 1 ft contours that is

[liketheice]

I just ordered the Garmin Upper Midwest Fishing Guide: microSD™/SD™ card Being the nice guy that I am, I'm taking one for the team. I'll let everybody know how it looks in a couple of weeks. I even paid for 2 day shipping so I have it hopefully for this weekend. If it not look so good, I'm going to the Igloo and having a drink with Curt!

[MN Mike]

GOOD DEAL!

Keep us posted.

Remember, your Garmin has about 6 different levels of detail that it will show from the card. I believe it comes defaulted to the middle of the road setting which is Normal but there should be 2 or 3 more settings above that to show even more details of the lake.

Mike

[liketheice]

Actually what I did, last night not paying attention downloading MN snowmobile trail to my Garmin I downloaded it to the LOTW Lake Master chip, now I have the sled trail on my LOTW chip. (((, I'm still cryin over that one. So I had no choice in the matter. I thought I would check out the Garmin map bein it's all of Minnesota and Lake of the Woods too.

[fridron]

lti,

I think you only down loaded to your garmin hard drive and not the chip. You can check this out by putting your chip into another unit. IF I am right in this thought, you will also have the snowmobile trails show up on your new chip. I have done this on my Lowrances and it was only on the hard drive and not my LM or Nav chips.

[liketheice]

I hope your right. Right now when I put the chip into my GPS all that comes up is MN snowmobile trail, not Lake of the woods like it used to say. I did have the trail on the internal memory but I erased a old version from the GPS and erased the new one also, so when I got home and loaded the new one I didn't click on internal memory first. by default the software I'm using is on the sd card when the sd card is in the gps. I needed to either take out sd card first or change to internal memory on the software and I didn't do either. If what you say is correct, how do I get my lake master back?

[liketheice]

Ok all,

I've got good news. after all the tears dried up, I looked again in the folder I made just for my garmin on the lap top and found two files and I didn't know what it was. I put those on the SD Card and......... there is the LOTW software back on the SD card!

shhhhhhhhh, don't tell the wife or she will make me cancel the Garmin software I bought. I still want that to look at it and see if it's better then the lake master, plus I'll have all those other lakes too..... I just want to thank this great support group that was with me during my loss. Now I can't wait till I get out to the big lake. I just might still stop and have a drink at the igloo with Curt

[Boar]

Hey lti, bring your garmim, i plan on showing up an would like to seeit action. Boar

[liketheice]

will do Boar. we can take a little ride with it. I was thinking, how is everybody going to know who is who there? You think Curt will make us all wear name tags?

[liketheice]

My week just keeps getting better! I found out this morning that I might have kid duty this weekend. No drink with Curt and no GPS run with Boar? I'll keep you posted Boar, I know you want to learn how to use your wife's GPS and see the Garmin software too. I'll let you know before Friday.

[Boar]

cool beans, do wat ya gota do, lots of season left.

[MN Mike]

Well....... curiosity killed the cat as they say! I ordered one too ( Upper Midwest Fishing Guide ). I don't know if I'll have it for this weekend but I should by the following weekend, then I can run it side by side against the Lakemaster Woods / Rainy chip and see how they compare. I'll be able to check some of the accuracy on a couple local lakes too.

Mike