The Outdoor Line Forum

I recently bought an HDS 5 Gen 2 Lowrance unit that I'm using mainly using for navigation. I would like to upgrade the mapping /navigation capabilities and am looking for some advice. I fish primarily in Puget Sound, Straits, San Juans and sometimes Neah Bay.
Thanks.
Danno

If you're running the Lowrance HDS-5's built-in cartography, then I would suggest that you pick up the Navionics chip for your area(s) of interest..
There are also Navionics+ charts and other upgrades available. Check out http://www.navionics.com/en

I tried the Navionics+ card in my HDS 5 unit this weekend and really wanted to take advantage of the bathymetry map feature, but found the chart info did not match sonar depth readings, e.g., couldn't see the slopes/peaks on the sonar that the map said were there. Has anyone had similar issues?

Hey Keith,
Charts and depth finders are rarely in agreement.
Transducer mounting location, tides and your boats position all lead to discrepancies.
How far off was the sounder from the chart depths and in roughly what areas were you?

Thanks for responding Nelly! We were fishing possession bar trying to target pinnacles/drop-offs with the bathymetry map. Was really surprised that pinnacles/ridges on the Navionics map didn't match up with what we saw on the sounder, e.g., saw unchanged bottom while the map showed tight lines where there should have been a good drop off/rise. Also, besides the pinnacles/ridges not matching to the sounder, the depth readings were probably off around 40 to 80 ft (just a guess, but not seeing the pinnacles/drop-offs match up was the big issue that we saw).

Also, I did confirm that the HDS gen 2 was updated with the latest version of software (about a year old).