I was wondering if anyone every uses satelite photos of your home lakes?  Any one ever fly over a body of water and see points, deep grass and humps that you couldn't see if you where in a boat.

I do and I also try to find a old map if I can before the lake was made to find other things that a map or a photo will not show. Like the lake I fish years ago had a town in it that I wouldn't have known with out looking it up.

I always research the Core of Eng. They have pictures of before and during the construction. Great source for maps.  I have even found good contour maps at the county land offices.

Survey mapping is nice also.

State of RI fish & wildlife made a book of 60 lakes with topo,lake description, species, maintenance,access,etc.

Awesome resource, they are hard to find now.  My topo is a little outdated but we redid it on photoshop to show exactly what's where and then some.

As i just started college I found another resource you might want to try. Go to the college libraries if you can they have a ton of maps. I realy haven't be able to check them out yet but from the looks of it they will have some lake ones too. My school has a gigantic section of many many maps.

bassdocktor

try googlemaps.com and terraserver.com

pretty decent maps, but I have to believe there are better ones, just haven't found them yet.

AGGHHHH  Its just fishin fellas whats next DNA profiles of cloned record fish!!

muddy_man,     I think your on to something, DNA and cloning.  

download google earth at earth.google.com

already being done in Texas. ;D

Yea man, the ones on terraserver just so happened to have been taken when the lake was down almost 14ft. I zoomed in and copied almost 20 miles of shore line and have a great catalog that I used for that extra edge. I've been offered big buck for it.

Like mentioned already, but I can't say it enough times...

Google Earth------Google Earth-------Google Earth

It's awesome.  I sometimes go to the Grand Canyon and just fly along the Colorado River to see what I can see.

Like mentioned already, but I can't say it enough times...

Google Earth------Google Earth-------Google Earth

It's awesome. I sometimes go to the Grand Canyon and just fly along the Colorado River to see what I can see.

I must have a problem with my computer.  Google earth just doesn't seem to want to work ...I can get to the globe, but when I start to zoom in it just kinda goes berzerk.

Yea man, the ones on terraserver just so happened to have been taken when the lake was down almost 14ft. I zoomed in and copied almost 20 miles of shore line and have a great catalog that I used for that extra edge. I've been offered big buck for it.

hey, maybe that's a way to feed the monkey! Wheeeeeeeee

I have been using Google Maps and switch it to the satellite image.

http://maps.google.com/

I tried to use Google Earth and always ran into problems.

I haven't had any problems at all with Google Earth.  I know that you need a pretty quick processor, decent amount of ram and a high speed connection to do it justice though.

I have tried google earth to look for good river holes but the pictures for my area are over two years old....Any way to get more recent ones?

The lake I fish most often drains on a twenty year cycle through a sinkhole. It is between four and five thousand acres. Walking that dry lake bed taking pictures and making notes can be another great tool just like aerial photos. On a shallow natural lake it can be surprising to learn how evern subtle changes in depth can affect fish where fish congregate and plant growth.

I just started using Google Earth and I noticed that the areas to my east in the direction of Philadelphia are much better, but as you get farther west the resolution is terrible. Like the old terraserver I used the major population areas had been mapped with higher resolution first. When I first messed with them years ago large parts of the rural areas weren't even done at all.

shortly after moving into Port st. lucie, I looked at areal and satellite photos of my area.  I saw allot of secluded water, but after getting all scratched and bitten up I found that most of it was just marshy bogs.  The photos probably were taken in the rainy season when these bogs fill up.  It was a mess.

very helpful thankz

Unless you order the picture, you won't be able to truly focus.  What you see on screen isn't even close to the actual picture.  I can ask for pictures if available 10 yrs back, or current pictures.  You can not zoom in where you can spy on some one online.  But the actual picture is worth the money.

I have tried google earth to look for good river holes but the pictures for my area are over two years old....Any way to get more recent ones?