I am looking at the Lowrance elite-4 for my feelfree 11.5' fishing kayak. I'm considering whether or not to get navionics. I will mostly be pond hopping the SE GA area but may make an occasional trip to the coastal river areas. The chart plotter will help in unfamiliar areas such as the river mouths. However, a majority of my fishing will be in easily navigable ponds. Will navionics actually help on small ponds by providing contours and details or are they mostly unmapped? I have a feeling small ponds are unmapped but I am wondering if anyone has personal experience with this. Are there any bonuses to using navionics on a small pond that I am not considering?

Thanks,

Gregg

Having contour mapping on "small ponds" is not likely.

You can view all the maps that Navionics has on their website's Web App. 

12 minutes ago, Wayne P. said:

Having contour mapping on "small ponds" is not likely.

You can view all the maps that Navionics has on their website's Web App. 

Something like insight genisis and garmin quick chart may change this. Those small lakes with crappy map data may be a thing of the past. Small local ponds might be an issue if you cannot take a boat/kayak out there. It will be cool to see how this affects local tournaments on lakes with bad charts. 

Humminbird has Auto Chart Live in the Helix 9, 10, and 12 series and the ONIX and ION units have it also. Real time contour mapping.

Navionics has had the Sonar Charts program for about 4 years and Sonar Charts Live for about two years to convert sonar logs to HD contour mapping.

I use all three to create contour mapping where there is none or to get better detail than existing maps.

Is there a way to load the maps I create from sonar logs and upload into IG on the depth finder? Do I have to pay the IG subscription fee to be able to use the maps created by the sonar logs on the depth finder? Is the chart plotter the only way to show countours? Forgive me, I'm new to the latest depth finder technology and stepping up my game from bank fishing. The last time I fished exclusively from a bass boat with a fish finder was over 15 years ago with my father. He had a 7 inch humminbird up front, I manned the crappy dash board inlay depth finder that filled up with light to show the depth, no fish finding capabilities. My experience is limited and outdated. 

I'll be fishing the Fort Stewart, GA area which has some larger ponds where the detail and contours would come in handy. The chart plotter would help me reach inshore reefs in river mouths (coordinates provided by GA DNR) but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to get to the coast. Therefore I'm not sure how necessary a chart plotter is unless it's required to overlay contours from insight genesis. I'm trying to clarify some issues before I drop 200-330 dollars and wanted some help from experienced folks.

8 hours ago, greggt4736 said:

Is there a way to load the maps I create from sonar logs and upload into IG on the depth finder? Do I have to pay the IG subscription fee to be able to use the maps created by the sonar logs on the depth finder? Is the chart plotter the only way to show countours? Forgive me, I'm new to the latest depth finder technology and stepping up my game from bank fishing. The last time I fished exclusively from a bass boat with a fish finder was over 15 years ago with my father. He had a 7 inch humminbird up front, I manned the crappy dash board inlay depth finder that filled up with light to show the depth, no fish finding capabilities. My experience is limited and outdated. 

I'll be fishing the Fort Stewart, GA area which has some larger ponds where the detail and contours would come in handy. The chart plotter would help me reach inshore reefs in river mouths (coordinates provided by GA DNR) but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to get to the coast. Therefore I'm not sure how necessary a chart plotter is unless it's required to overlay contours from insight genesis. I'm trying to clarify some issues before I drop 200-330 dollars and wanted some help from experienced folks.

A GPS plotter that has no mapping is called Track Plotter. It does Routes, Tracks, and Waypoints on a blank background.

A Chart Plotter does the same with a map background. If you want to see contours displayed it has to be a Chart Plotter.