I am in the market for a new console unit with mapping and I fish a lot of the Potomac River. I'm curious to see for those who fish the Potomac, what mapping software you use?  Lake Master, Navionics, C-Map?  And how do you like it?   I also fish Lake Anna and Smith Mountain Lake, but those lakes seem pretty well mapped no matter who I go with.  Thanks for the advise!

I'm not familiar with the Potomac, but before going on vacation,

I'll normally purchase bathymetry cards from all available vendors.

Lakemaster tends to be superior in northern waters, but overall,

Navionics tends to have better contour lines. In truth, I'm not happy

with any cartographer, but auto-mapping new waters is prohibitively time-consuming.

 

Roger

Navionics is pretty good on the Potomac, but on tidal waters you're primarily using mapping for not running into things or up on mud flats...Not so much for finer details of structure.

 

I don't have the option of LakeMaster since I use Lowrance, but my understanding is that Humminbird hasn't done much if anything with LM on the Potomac yet.  LM is a big step above Navionics on Anna and SML though.  

 

I'm interested in the new C-Map Precision Contour charts but they are not available for VA or MD yet.  The look amazing for the states they've mapped so far (AL, TN, NC)...They will rival Lakemaster from what I've seen, just need to wait for them to map VA and MD.