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Cigar Guy congrats on your retirement!!! I will start spending a lot more time up there this season as well. There is nothing like that first run down the lake of the season. Good luck  on the early season crappies.   Steve

I use Lake Insight Pro with my Lowrance units.  I used to have Navionics but was advised to switch over to Lake Insight for accuracy.   20 years ago when I started using modern GPS/mapping, Lakemaster was still compatible with Lowrance.  In fact my iFinder H20C still uses a Lakemaster chip.  I think its 2007.   The nice part about Humminbird is that they can sync up with Minn Kota.  The problem is that when you've used Lowrance for 20 years, you're very familiar with their operating system and if I tried to switch at this point it would be like trying to learn a foreign language.

Is there a corporate connection between Johnson Controls and Johnson Outdoors, other than that they are both named Johnson?  

Comparison between Navionics and Lakemaster. https://sportfishingbuddy.com/navionics-vs-lakemaster/   In 2004 Johnson Control started buying Lakemaster, Humminbird & Minkota - made everything porparithy to only work on Johnson Control products. Lowrance than teamed with Motor Guide and Navionics making a compatible fishing system to Johnson Control. Navionics also made there 1' contour maps available on the web with the Boating App where Contour Elete is on a windows computer limited software. (Computers do not have GPS chips.) Lowrance also created there C-Map to work on there product line.    I use Navionics Boating App $15 annual subscription on my Samsung phone and Samsung 10" tablet. Both have dual GPS and GLONASS chipset (USA/Russia navigation) 3ft. accuracy on the lake linked to my Vex Sonar. Very effective at a very low cost. Offers a super planning tool compared to lakemaster. You can also get lakemaster on your smart phone using the FishSmart App @ $10 to $30 per lake.   My son has a Humminbird set up on his boat running Follow the Contour. I ran test on contour and sonar depth accuracy following a 19 ft. contour. Both Navionics and Lakemaster were not 100% accurate both at times varied between 11 ft. and 26 ft. about 5% of time. Most of the route was spot on most of the time. The lake was Ottertail with fantastic structure variation. My opinion, both maps are equal in quality. Navionics offers a greater comparable equipment use.

I hear you. I wasn't "thinking" about that when I upgraded my Minnkota trolling motor about five years ago. Had I been, I would have switched so that it worked with my Lowrance. Maybe whenever I upgrade my graph I'll switch over to Hummingbird. It is all confusing.   BTW - I did ordered a new Navionics lake map chip so I'll see if it's much of an improvement.

I was awakened this morning by the sweet sound of a 2-stroke plodding through Black Bay on the crappie hunt. It's a much better wakeup sound than a whiney snowmobile motor, that's for sure. I should find an alarm clock that sounds like an old outboard plowing through the lake waters....

Did "lakemaster"   re-survey the lake, or is this data from Navionics?     Trying to keep ownership straight.    Hummingbird owns Lakemaster it appears although it is a little ambiguous. Johnson outdoors owns Hummingbird.     Garmin owns Navionics.     Navico owns Lowrance and C-Maps.        I used to think there were only 3 sets of data for Vermilion, the OG Lakemaster 3 foot, Navionics 1 foot, and Garmin 1 foot.   Then Garmin acquired Navionics.    And now we have three families of stuff to consider for electronics and trolling motors.    And since nothing works with the other brands it becomes a real decision which one to get locked into and no source of unbiased uncorrupted objective information.....☹️

I think that the primary purpose of any harvest regulation is to control the total amount of fish taken from the lake, and secondarily to alter the size structure of the population.      Minimum sizes, slots, numerical limits all have their problems with their effects on the size distribution, especially in a lake where the harvest is near the maximum level.     We all have heard of a large lake here in Minnesota with all sorts of issues that are basically insoluble in the face of the high level of fishing pressure it gets.      The best thing that could happen to Vermilion is for Canada to reopen.  😀   I don't know that keeping 4 12 inchers is somehow worse than keeping 4 17 inch fish, with regards to the population, for example.   I  hope folks don't start filling their freezers in the spring and fall when the fishing is good. (it is unlawful but a lot of it happened anyway)   I'm just glad to see that things are looking up for the lake and the West end in particular so I won't have to psych myself up for a long boat ride in order to actually catch a walleye.

Congratulations on Retirement!

Congratulations on retirement, CigarGuy.  It has been 2 years for me now and I know you will love it.  Can't say I have been fishing more than when I was working, but at least I can pick the best times to go.