Texas Boating

by LENNY RUDOW :: TF&G Boating Editor

Coastal Mapping Systems

USING THE BEST SYSTEMS can help you cruise directly to the hotspots—and then catch more sh.

Any discussion of coastal mapping for anglers should certainly start with the Texas Lakes & Bays Atlas. We’ve been publishing this book for 32 years. It covers more than 3,000 shing hotspots in 63 lakes and coastal bays

Although the GPS coordinates, tips, and detailed contour maps are invaluable to anglers of all kinds, the conversation certainly does not end there. e digital mapping system in the MFD at your boat’s helm is also a critical component to locating hotspots, cruising directly to them, and identifying similar benthic geography in an area that potentially holds sh.

MAPPING MATTERS

Marine chartography has long been dominated by two players, Navionics and C-Map. ey are still the mapping providers of choice of all major electronics manufacturers. In recent years, however, electronics manufacturers have also made an investment in developing their own proprietary mapping systems.

Garmin has developed BlueChart g3 and g3 Vision maps. ese maps include bathymetric contour detail to one foot, auto-guidance ability, depth and shoal water shading, and some high-resolution relief shading via ActiveCaptain. e g3 Vision mapping also includes high-resolution satellite photography, aerial photography, and 3-D “ sheye” underwater perspectives.

Humminbird recently entered the proprietary saltwater mapping game with their CoastMaster charts, which won the 2020 ICAST award for Best of Electronics. CoastMaster charts are an add-on compatible with Helix G3/G3N and Solix models, with contour data to one foot, depth and shallows highlighting, and customizable shing and navigation presets. ese charts also have several unusual shing-speci c features that will prove valuable for shallow water anglers casting along the coast. is includes the ability to color-shade areas that will be above water at low tide but submerged at high tide, and a water level o set that synchronizes contours and shorelines with current tidal levels.

Raymarine o ers LightHouse charts and LightHouse Premium. is feature adds highresolution satellite imagery and points-ofinterest intel with data on marinas, fuel docks, and the like. is will come in handy during road trips to unfamiliar waters. Contours can be displayed up to that same epic one-foot detail, and there are “veri ed” shing hotspots included on the maps.

Most of these systems depend on a mix of di erent databases, usually starting with NOAA soundings and building from there with proprietary information. In some cases, data is sourced from charter captains or even crowd-sourced information.

Some additional mapping system providers, however, take a di erent tack. CMORE Mapping is compatible with many Navico brand, Raymarine, Mercury VesselView, and Furuno products. It produces bathymetry for limited geographical areas including some Gulf waters. ese color-shaded maps with one meter resolution feature data gathered via full-coverage echosounder surveys with no interpolation. is produces mapping with far fewer errors and signi cantly more accurate detail than the norm.

However, coverage areas are limited. Most of the West Gulf bathymetry and much of the Eastern Gulf is o shore waters, only, and the price is steep at $700 for a chart card.

Another on-the-water data gatherer is StrikeLines, which details a wider swath of Texas’s inshore and coastal waters and a large portion of o shore water. However, it still has gaps in the coverage areas.

StrikeLines chartography is compatible with many Navico, Raymarine, and Mercury VesselView units. It can also be utilized on Android and iOS devices, and is available both in downloadable and MicroSD chart card forms. Pricing is a bit more palatable, too, at $199 to $449.

It’s important to remember that systems like CMORE and StrikeLines are constantly updated and expanded as more and more mapping surveys get done. If the areas you sh most o en aren’t yet covered, it’s worth revisiting in the future.

Strikelines also o ers some spectacular 4K aerial imaging with clarity good enough to pick out features like sandbars and weedbeds in the shallows, but the coverage for 4K currently runs from Florida through Louisiana. We certainly hope these folks plan on working their way west in the near future.

DELIVERING THE DATA

If you look at all the systems and the perks and features, they o er, you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that all of them deliver a whole lot more than the digital mapping systems we used just a few years ago. What tops them all, however, is the ability to create your own bathymetric mapping.

While it’s often limited to midrange and higher units in the model lines, all of the major manufacturer’s modern MFDs now include the ability to self-chart. Lowrance calls it Genesis, Raymarine calls it RealBathy, Humminbird calls it AutoChart Live, and Garmin uses the moniker Quickdraw Contours. Each of these systems is a bit di erent, but the bo om line remains the same. Your own sonar and GPS work together to collect pings and position data, allowing you to draw your own digital charts as you sh.

In the long run, this may be the most important mapping capability of them all. When considering digital chartography, you have to recognize at the outset that there’s no such thing as an error-free data pool. As great as all these mapping systems may be, there will be times when the chartplo er says you’re parked over a tall hump or reef that comes up to 20 feet, and the sh nder screen reads a steady 50 feet. If you have an MFD with digital maps you already know this—we’ve all been there. Selfcharting, however, allows you to gather 100 percent accurate, real-time, interpolation-free data for the waters you personally sh.

What about identifying new and faraway hotspots? Self-mapping may not help in that regard, but stock chartography is almost always good enough to get you into the general vicinity of a reef, wreck, or shelf, and with a few passes you should be able to locate what you’re looking for, record on-site data, and then access that data forever, at a glance.

MOBILE MAPPING

Humminbird's CoastMaster

If you don’t have an MFD capable of enjoying mapping features such as those we’ve described here, you can still get into the game with a cell phone or tablet. Navionics and C-Map both o er apps that allow you to essentially turn your Android or iOS device into a chartplo er that displays their mapping systems. e Navionics app o ers a rather amazingly comprehensive set of features, including high-resolution bathymetry with one-foot contours, user-selected color depth shading, and dock-to-dock auto-routing. In fact, if your sh nder is WiFi enabled you can even pull data from it to enjoy SonarChart Live, the Navionics version of self-mapping. In many cases older MFDs have WiFi, but not the ability to self-chart. Using the Navionics app and your phone allows you to tap into this ability without having to make an expensive electronics upgrade. A one-year subscription goes for a mere $14.99. C-Map’s app is free and has similar functionality, but without the self-charting abilities or the ability to download maps and use them o ine unless you upgrade to the Premium version ($25.99/year).

So, which of these systems is “best?” e truth of the ma er is that most anglers will have the option of using Navionics or C-Map, but beyond that, will be limited by the brand of MFD si ing at the helm of their boat. e good news is that all of these systems o er you data and detail that’s light years ahead of what you’d have seen on the screen just a few short years ago. Whichever mapping system you might employ, one thing is for sure: learn how to use it e ectively, and it will help you become a more e ective angler.

Email Lenny Rudow at ContactUs@fi shgame.com

The author with a hog she took while “thermal hunting”