Digital Map Data
Most digital map data is free and can be found on the Internet. It has been produced by Federal, State, or Local governments and paid for by your taxes. This includes aerial photography, topo maps, road networks, stream networks, elevation contours, and numerous other datasets. The United States Geological Survey is the main producer of most base map data. Another common data source is the U.S. Census bureau. Federal and state natural resource departments often produce data relevant to fisherman.
The problem with digital map data is that the public generally doesn’t know it exists. For those who do know about it the data can be hard to find or inefficient to access. Furthermore, very few people have the training required to really use the data effectively. Most commercial products selling fishing maps (or any kind of maps for that matter) take advantage of this. Free data is often resold inside proprietary hardware or software programs or on hard copy maps. Sometimes this data is augmented with additional information to make a more informative product but for the most part customers are held hostage by their lack of knowledge. While it does cost money to deliver data in a format that is useful, in almost all cases we believe you are paying too much for it (after all it was free to start with) and not getting enough in return. For example, contours help you determine potential holding spots for fish but tell you nothing about the surrounding terrain or the lake itself. An image of the lake provides a lot of information you can’t get from a contour map but supplies no information about what’s under the water. Why look at contours or an image separately when you could look at both at once?
