Anyone have experience with or suggestions about gps devices?
when i was looking at gps’, found a gps
forum where people asked those sorts of questions. Decided to hold off, there are more important fishing things I want. For fishing, unless you are going off shore, fishing a place with lots of bays and creeks where you get lost easily, or fishing certain salt water areas, I can’t see a lot of use other than marking locations of good fishing spots.
I use them
quite often, but not in my yak unless i’m on vacation which usually takes me to the Keys in late Feb. I have two, one hand-held and one permanant mounted in my boat. I use the hand-held mostly ice fishing for walleyes and perch on the great lakes and large inland lakes. Invaluable tool to find your way home and also to find a school of fish you were on the day before. I also use it during the muzzleloader deer hunting season which takes me to the U.P. I also carry it with me anytime i’m taking a long road trip. Anyway, Garmin products are great. Many choices to fit your budget.
GPS
I use mine a lot. It really came in handy on Saranac Lake, New York this August. All of those islands look the same, and it made it easy to find our launch site after a day of fishing and exploring the area. It also works great to see how far you’ve paddled and your speed. Fun gadget.
Garmin gets my vote.
garmen color etrex
bought one back in march - went on three trips to quetico. never even pulled out the paper maps. it was so cool to load the route before hand into the garmen unit and pull it up on the trip.
easy to find portages and stay on course .
good luck
I have the garmin gpsmap 76
and I like it a lot. I did a pretty extensive search and decided on this one based on advice and price. You can’t go wrong with Garmin!!
I use mine on river floats in my yak to track how many mailes I’ve covered, how many I have left, where the take out is, and to mark points of interest like good camping spots and fishing holes for when I return. Although mine isn’t as portable as the etrex, it’s still small enough to fit in my pocket. And, the bigger surface area gives it better satelite reception. With 8mb I can download more than enough topo map for any extended float or hiking trip.
But, I REALY think all the mapping capability that these things have is not worth the extra cost. You can play around with maps on your computer before your trip to mark important landmarks / mile marks on your gps. And, you can plug the gps into the computer after the trip to see where you actually went. But, if you have the extra cash, memory and color is nice to have.