Hand held G P S

[bassplayer17]

Lookin to buy a hand held gps unit for my boat.... Looked at a few units now Lowrance, Magellan....What do you all think ...

[Mike Carey]

Lookin to buy a hand held gps unit for my boat.... Looked at a few units now Lowrance, Magellan....What do you all think ...

I have a Garmin etrex vista HCx.

I love my device. I use it for hiking and also for marine use. It is pretty intuitive and has all the features I need. Granted, it's a small screen and not as easily seen as a finder/gps marine unit, but at the end of the day I prefer the multi use function.

BTW, it's a snap to use the Garmin Basecamp and add routes to the unit. Also, very easy to upload this web site's hotspots to the unit and use them as way points. It was very helpful the first time I fished Merwin lake. At Baker I would mark locations I caught fish, and use the "cookie crumb" tracks to double back on biting fish.

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-eTrex-High ... B000PDR1LS

Garmin has a bunch of dedicated marine handhelds as well at their web site.

[hlindsay]

I had a Magellan for several years, it worked well. It died a few weeks ago. I got a Garmin Oregon 450t.

The Magellan could be set to show what I wanted on the screen all at one time, speed/direction and map. It had battery that was just for it and rechargeable, I think it had a AAA adaptor.

I went with the Garmin for the larger screen and the fact I could get a WA map for hunting that gives the property owner of all land in WA. Great for hunting and knowing what or whose land I’m on. On down side for water use it will show the map OR the speed (trip info) OR the direction. I have not found where I can set it to show all or even two of these at the same time. At Sekiu in the fog I was switching from screen to screen to see where I was going and to hold a trolling speed. I can live with that for the maps that only are compatible with Garmin. It uses AAA batteries on the trail and can be plugged-in in the truck or boat to save batteries. The 450T came with topo map loaded on it.

[Marc Martyn]

If you have an iPhone 4 this is a great GPS app. You download the app for $.99 and buy a yearly subscription of $30 a year.

http://news.motionx.com/motionx-gps/201 ... app-store/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

All traffic information is kept up current. You can preload route maps so that you don't have to have cell phone reception.
It is the best GPS I've owned.

[oneshot]

I use a Garmin Rino 610.. its really not needed for these local rivers, but for more out of the way places in them mountains where cell reception is an issue, its golden. its also a walky talky and can send emergency signals or track my friends who also have Rinos.. It does make my fishin' buddy fish finder worth more since i can tell travel speeds and have maps of the river etc.,..

for local rivers where cell recption is good, a good smart phone works for viewing the river and where you are at..

[bassplayer17]

Thanks for the imput guys....I don't do much hiking or hunting anymore and don't ride horse's in the backcountry no more just want one for out on the water.......