Freshwater Fishfinder / Depth Map

[Hooked4Life]

So after all of this winter research I'm realizing that I want to be able to understand the landscape below the surface of the water (not just a view directly under the boat). I want a fishfinder that displays my location on a map showing contours of depths below. Started looking into it and can't get a read on whether I need to purchase software in addition to the fishfinder in order to display this information. Any advice?

[Fishon1982]

For around here the navionics app for the phones is the same as you can get with top end fish finders but if u want to see fish and be able to read hard and soft bottoms better the pixels better the read to the screen like all good things come high priced but if U just want general structure u can not beat the app

[team heat]

Ceckout raymarines new dragonfly fishfinder.Its a fishfinder plus gps chartplotter with the new chirp technology with downscan.Comes with us inlakes sd card plus navionics gold sd card plus transducer.You can see a video on raymarines website.Ijust purchased mine for 519.00 over the internet.Idont think you can find a better fishfinder gps combo for the money anywhere.Hope this helps.

[jimmythegreek]

NONE of the fishfinders made come with any usefull lake map info, u must buy a navionics chip for the east. (lakemaster makes NO chip for NE) On the higher end Hbirds the included map systems contains depths for 2 NJ lakes that I know of, GWL and LH but its only 5 foot contours and fairly accurate. I have both the platinum and premium chips and they show the same thing, the platinum just gives u buoy and all markings for all bodies of water, and all the other lakes are just copies of the states depth charts, thats it. I have high end electronics and cant tell u that I rarely use DI at all, mainly use 2D/GPS on a split screen, and often use SI on a full screen. SI is worth it but NOT on a small screen, if you cant pony up for 8" or better dont bother u cant rly see squat unless you just want obvious big structure and not alot of detail. If your on a budget look for a used unit, there are lots of Hbirds for sale now that the new models came out, Im partial to them I like the menus and features, altho lowrance and others are just as good