Lakemaster Maps of IN available now on their web site

I found out some really great information tonight and want to share it with you all. I went to the Bass Boat Central Web site and saw a thread about the Lake Master Maps. Seems that the new IN/OHIO map has some good maps of Bluegrass Pit in Warrick County, IN.

If you fish this pit and have a Humminbird Depth Finder that can use these Lakemaster SDHC card then I'd highly recommend that you buy one of these digital map cards. This is the cat's meow for these pits.

These maps are much better than the maps that IDNR F&W made of these pits and posted on their web site. Perhaps the Lakemaster did their own lake survey or the IDNR's data was more detailed and they just didn't use all the detailed data to make the maps online. I'm not sure but I'm very pleased with these new maps for Bluegrass Pit. They should be as good for Otter Pit. I only wish that they did the same for LOON Pit but I fear that pit was not added to the IN/OHIO lakes on these digital maps cards.

I ordered my Lakemaster IN/OH map from Bass Pro Shops today. They now have them in stock. I'll get it in regular snail mail with no rush delivery so it may be a week or so before I receive it. I'll give it a look see as soon as I can and report on what I find.

OK I finally got the new Lake Master IN/OH map and looked at it. Bluegrass and Otter pit are in high definition or 1 ft contour intervals and look really great. Monroe Lake is looking good as well. Huntingburg New Lake and West Boggs are looking good too.

But, Patoka Lake Reservoir is horrible. If you fish Patoka Lake and want to buy this map DON'T. Not until they do a new survey of Patoka Lake and sell the maps as High Definition Maps.

OK PS. I'm going to regret posting this but here goes anyway. These new Lake Master Digital Maps for IN/OH are now on sale at Evansville's Gander Mountain. I saw about 4 or 5 copies of them on display in the fishing dept right under the Navionics Display Area. But Like I said, the Patoka Lake map is horrible. They only had one or two countour lines on parts of the lake I fish and I think they were like 20 ft contour level lines. Maybe they were ten foot contour lines but they still didn't show any real detail of the lake bottom IMHO. I know a good topo map when I see one.

I did pick up a good book on Using Maps to fish. This book is sold by FHS maps but it's got some good information in it. Sort of a condensed version of all the old Fishing Facts Magazines combined together on how to read topo maps of a lake and figure out where the fish will be with the different seasons.

In-Fishermen's books are good too.

I finally got to go fishing and check out the new Lake Master Digital Map of Blue Grass Pit in Warrick County. I found that the contours are not as accurate as I wanted. Call me pickey but when I'm sitting in 13 ft of water and the contour line that my boat's icon sits on is in 25 ft of water that's not right.

Now some areas are close but I did a lot of checking the South End of Bluegrass Pit. My Humminbird GPS screen said it was accurate to plus or minus 2 ft at the time. My GPS 50 channel antenna is mounted up high above the engine so it can see all the sky. So it's very accurate when on Bluegrass Pit as that's fairly flat ground and while on the water I have a good view of the sky and the GPS satellites.

I'll have to do some more testing. I'm trying to figure out how to use the Humminbird's water level offset and the transducer's level offset.

My transducer is mounted on the starboard side of the boat's transom near the bottom. It sits about 1.5 ft below the surface of the water. So I have to adjust the Humminbird's to adjust for the transducer being that deep into the water. That is if I want the depth readings to be adjusted for the water's actual depth from the surface to the bottom.

Also I'm not really sure where the water level was when the data was obtained. I'm thinking that the data was taken by IDNR and I know the date that the IDNR did the lake survey as I was there watching them do the work and took pictures of survey boat and it's crew. So I have the picture data which includes the date the picture was taken. I can also see the lake and figure out the water level from the pictures. This pit can vary by as much as ten feet or maybe more. From flood stage to times of drought.

I've seen the water level up to where it was flooding the parking lot and up over the rails of the handicap platform. Then I've seen the water level so low that you could not use the launch ramp without having your trailer tires fall off the end of the concrete launch ramp. So I can figure the level of the lake at these two extremes.

Lake Master's maps allow you to adjust the lake level. I need to figure out which way to adjust the lake level. UP or down or plus or minus to get the best accuracy. I 've tried it both ways and didn't see much change. Perhaps I'm not doing it right. I'll have to do more research on this.

I see you are interested in lake map of Petoka. Here is a link to the Navionics updated lake map of Petoka [URL]http://www.navionics.com/patoka[/URL]
The other beauty of Navionics is free updates for the first year with a new chip and discounted update for older chips, the website has the details