Hand held gps ?

[Big "T"]

Hey everybody, I recently won a really nice sized gift card for a outdoor store. I would like to buy a hand held gps that i can put a rainy lake chip in. I don't know alot about them so im just wondering if anybody has had good luck with any of the new hand helds and the rainy lake chips that work with them. I would like to stay around $ 500.00 for the gps. Thanks for any help.

[CaptJohnWis]

I use to have a hand held GPS but the screens are so small not overly useful. What I did for ice fishing is just rig up my regular boat GPS to my Vexilar battery and blue "ice box" battery carrier. If space/weight is not a problem you might consider that option.

What ever GPS you get make sure you can zoom in to a close up of 50 feet or less. Do not end up like the guide we hired on Rainy whose GPS could only zoom into 1/4 mile. Nothing like tossing out a marker and then wasting 20 minutes trying to find the reef because you cannot zoom in close. With good zoom and the new Rainy chips you can drive directly to even small reefs.

[2121 WARRIOR]

h20...thats it...they discontinued it but its better than the new option in my opinion. if your looking for handheld only.

[Mudcutter]

Doing a houseboat trip in less than 2 weeks. My buddy borrowed me his Garmin 60CSx, I got the chip,,, and WOW. It's incredbile. Of course it all comes down to how "spot on" it is, I have over 25 reefs marked and even which ones to fish depending on the wind. Garmin has a function called "overzoom" which allows you to zoom into 20' with the screen basically being 100' horizonatal by 100' vertical . Pretty cool. Compared it to the Lowrance chip of a video on IDO fishing, (actually found the same reef they had as an example) and it was EXACTLY the same. Garmin doesn't exactly own the depthfinder world, but I think they got the GPS end of the bargin down pretty good,, and have had for years.

[cat977]

I got a h2oc and it works really good like Z said they don't make it anymore and can be hard to find but my thoughts it is the best that out there I mainly use mine for ice fishing but i can just switch the chips from my boat to the h2oc

[Champs]

I have the h20c and my buddy has a garmin handheld. I like the garmin one better. You can see the display much better during the daylight on his than on my h2oc. Just my opinion.

Champs

[Cheers]

Garman 76csx you wont be sorry

[croixflats]

Garman 76csx you wont be sorry

Awsome unit and you can find them for around $250 and an extra $107 for the lakemaster chip rainy lake chip..

[bobbymalone]

no complaints with my garmin 60cx and those 76's are even better.

lowrance is overrated and circling the drain, IMHO.

[croixflats]

Or if you wanted to upgrade to the new technoligy from the 76 and 60 series go to the 78s and 62s series for around $400 but you still need $107 for the map data. Between the 2 series I really cant pinpoint the differance besides the 76 and 78 series floats and the 60 and 62 series has the quad helix antena.

[bak2MN]

I have the Garmin Colorado 400 and it zooms into 20 ft. I like it. I got mine for less than 500 with the chip.