As new technologies emerge in fishing, it seems like anglers
adopt these  technologies quickly, puzzling over how they ever caught fish
before it. Sonar  took anglers leaps and bounds over their previous flasher
follies on the water.  GPS and detailed map chips relieved us of triangulating
with paper maps and that  empty feeling of realizing you’ve been fishing a spot
20 yards from the “actual” spot.

In recent years, side scanning, or as
Lowrance terms it, Structure  Scan gave us a new way to interpret what’s on the
bottom. Now we not only see  below and out to the side of us, but we determine
if what was out there was a  rock, a brush pile, a pod of baitfish or something
else.

Down scan gave  us a more detailed look at what was showing up
below us on the sonar. We could  make out individual branches and fish relating
to each individual branch.   Sonar, GPS, structure scan and all the improvements
to each, without a doubt  make us more efficient in our search for the best
schools of fish on each  fishery.

Now a new advance in contour graphing
may be the last frontier  of exploration in fishing. The new HDS Generation 2
Units will soon be hitting  the shelves and showing up in anglers’ fishing
boats. These units boast a lot of  improvements over the current HDS units, but
the flagship feature on these new  units is something called Structure Map. We
spent a few days reviewing the units  before their release a couple months ago
and have some observations on the new  units.

Structure Map can be a little tricky to explain, but the  technology is going to
take a lot of the trickery out of figuring out previously  uncharted waters.
With Lowrance’s Structure Map, the contours are graphed just  like in Structure
Scan but then overlaid onto your GPS map. So now you can drive  back and forth
over a section of the lake that might not have contours on your  map chip and
chart all the rock piles, stumps, creeks, and more in that area.


Structure
Map has many options  and easily turned on and off with the same method you
activate weather, radio,  radar and other overlays on your Lowrance HDS units.
You can save the graphing  to a SDHD Card and then load it later. So an angler
can now take his time and go  back and forth over an area and have a saved
reality of what the bottom of the  lake looks like.

This is going to be
immensely helpful in those bays and  creeks or smaller bodies of water where
accurate mapping has not been done on  map cards. Pinpoint brush and cover,
break lines and more and then drop  waypoints on your map to go back and fish
them effectively and efficiently. It’s  going to maximize your time fishing and
minimize your time looking.

Structure Map is not a replacement for Down
Scan or Structure Scan. It’s  an added tool in the toolbox. Over the next
several months we’re going to take a  year’s worth of research on how we best
implement Sonar, Structure Scan and Down  Scan in our fishing pursuits and turn
those into instructional articles to help  you use your electronics to their
fullest.

One thing you will notice  about Structure Map as compared to
Structure Scan, is Structure Map cuts out  that part of the picture that is from
the bottom of the boat to the bottom of  the lake. If you’re familiar with
Structure Scan, you know each side shows you  not only what is on the left and
right but also what is below you from the  bottom of the boat to the bottom of
the lake. Structure Map only looks out to  the side so that there is no void
area in the middle.


But
another cool feature is the save and  load features of Structure Map. You can
turn on Sonar Log, turn on the option to  convert to map when complete and you
can save your work as you idle back and  forth marking structure and cover on
the lake. One word of caution though. If  you record a big long trail with the
SL2 sonar log file, it will take the unit  quite a while to process that log
into the structure map file for viewing in  save mode, on other units or in
programs like Dr. Depth.


Structure
Map was not the only  pleasant surprise to the Gen 2 HDS units from Lowrance.
The overall speed of the  units and map updating is greatly enhanced, largely
because of cost effective  upgrades in hardware. When Structure Scan software
was developed, the original  hardware that fit the budget constraints of
building the first units was not  enough to meet the demands of the robust NSS
software. Now with the Gen 2 units  the hardware can keep up with the software
better and there aren’t the delays  between screen switching, mapping and other
functions that sometimes occurred in  the Gen 1 units.

The units are a
bit darker in appearance but have the  same look and navigation that anglers are
now accustomed to with HDS units. The  HDS 8 and 10 units feature the shortcut
buttons like before, card slots for map  cards and cards for recording waypoints
and saving structure and sonar  logs.

“Each technology will enhance the
other in different situations,” says Scott Glorvigen, the only angler to ever
win the FLW and PWT Walleye  championships. “When I see the structure on both
Structure Map and Structure  Scan, it fills the gaps between each
other.”

“It’s going to be huge for  ice fishing,” said Chris Meyer,
Dealer Service and Prostaff for Lowrance. “That  was my first thought. I could
drive the lakes in my boat when the water is open  and then come back drive on
the ice in saved mode with Structure Map in my truck  to get back to all my
favorite spots. But really I think it’s going to be a  great tool for helping
enhance and reinforce what guys are seeing.  Folks that  have gotten in my boat
that did not fully understand Structure Scan see  Structure Map and immediately
they understand Structure Scan better. It just  makes sense for
folks.”

The Generation 2 Lowrance
HDS units are shipping now. In fact  we’ve already
heard of at least one prostaff angler who ordered and already  received his new
units. These are going to be hot items for avid anglers in  2012. We’ll have a
lot more shorts on understanding individual features in the  HDS units and how
to apply them to your fishing.