Mapping is addictive

[dean nelson]

Anyone else find it addictive mapping out lake contours. No big deal when I'm on a mapped lake but when I'm on some of my ice fishing lakes that have no maps I find I don't even bother to fish unless someone else is with because I'm to interested in what's just around the next corner. For instance this morning working the mouth of a long bay we knew had some sort of narrowing but until today didn't realize it was as good of a funnel as really was. This map is about a half mile north to south.

What we knew it looked like on the surface.



What it really looks like down below.

 

[Account Deleted]

I don't have the technology to do that but it would be handy.

 

[Petras]

nice, I'm gonna do a crapload of mapping here in about 7 days. need to get some hours put on my big motor for break in.... might as well do it while mapping

 

[Davy Crockett]

Cool stuff Dean. About how long did it take to create and did you fish while you were making it ?

 

[220swift]

What software where you using. I've always wanted to do this but I'm not the best with with computers.

 

[Petras]

He's using the autochart software that comes standard on the Hummin bird Helix 9 and bigger graphs

 

[dean nelson]

Cool stuff Dean. About how long did it take to create and did you fish while you were making it ?

I was in the pipsqueak and had the small motor on so max speed was 1.8 most of the time and took about two hours. For areas where high detail is wanted such as the points i wouldnt go much faster but for more plain areas like the main lake basin i would probaly go more around eight to ten. This is a pic of the transects I ran to map this spot.



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The walleyes were definitely hanging on the humps as well. Should have taken a pic sooner when there were several but still see one here as well as see the unfinished south point before I filled that part in.

 

[DirtyMike]

This will definitely come in handy this winter. Thankfully, I know where you were!

 

[dean nelson]

That's actually the exact spot i told you to try. Only bad thing is I'm still seeing a bucket load of shrimp to go with all the fish I'm marking and it's near impossible to run cranks in her. Did find a nice rock pile on one of the trips....well either rock pile or a small volcano it could go either way.

 

[RustyTackleBox]

i vote for volcano... it'll be an island later this year

 

[Aquaholic]

I have been mapping with my Helix as well. Its fun especially those ice spots I like. I have not looked into the memory/hard drive yet. How much can you map before out of memory. While fishing and too busy to look into it. I have seen my helix say at times I was maxing out either trails or mapping data and it was going to overwrite. I'm curious if I need to map with and save with a card I only use for special spots.

 

[CatDaddy]

I do the same thing with Insight Genesis and Lowrance.....hilarious from shore I'm sure watching a dude not fishing and trolling back and forth without seeming purpose

 

[Tikka280ai]

Can you pull cranks or spinners while doing this. I am looking at getting a helix 9 and am curious if dragging baits behind will mess with the maping abilities

 

[RustyTackleBox]

I read on walleye central that my onix would only store about 8 hours of mapping with out the zeroline card so i got autochart pro and a card for 150 from Bass Distributing

 

[dean nelson]

I have been mapping with my Helix as well. Its fun especially those ice spots I like. I have not looked into the memory/hard drive yet. How much can you map before out of memory. While fishing and too busy to look into it. I have seen my helix say at times I was maxing out either trails or mapping data and it was going to overwrite. I'm curious if I need to map with and save with a card I only use for special spots.

Without a card to load it to you max out at eight hours. I have the mapping chip as well in it and apparently it auto loads to data up to it since I'm at over 30 hours at this point and have not done anything other then turn it on. I really should be mapping with the chip since it is far more advanced but you can't see the map till you upload to the computer so I've just been using autochart live.

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Can you pull cranks or spinners while doing this. I am looking at getting a helix 9 and am curious if dragging baits behind will mess with the maping abilities

When using autochart live it wouldn't be a problem since all it really is doing is taking a reading about the size of a pop can once a second then play a game of connect the dots to fill in all the gaps. That's why the slower you go and the tighter you run the more accurate the map gets. These maps i posted are so so on the accuracy front vs this one that is hyper accurate. I got this one down the foot on the foot meaning the second the map says I'm now at a certain depth the sonar agrees simultaneously. But that took over ten hours for just a couple acres and I'm reasonably sure my folks neighbors thought I was drunk as I zigzaged back and forth a couple hundred times.

 

[Flatrock]

I've been doing some mapping on the river this spring and it is sure helpful. DEFINITELY worth the time to do it.