Lowrance is Racing against a Deadline to Map Grand Lake

Map-making is not an exciting activity, but the potential of a mapping effort underway on Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees this month could lead to exciting results.

It’s at least pretty darned interesting...

 

 

...Seeing the bottom composition and being able to identify areas where the bottom changes from silt to rock in relation to the contours can help an angler identify areas that attract fish.

“That’s powerful information,” Huff said.

Some college-age boaters working for Lowrance are doing the lion’s share of the mapping and already have logged many hours. They will continue to log many more the next couple of weeks for the company’s Bassmaster Classic effort, Huff said.

“I’m uploading 13 hours worth of mapping from one of our students now,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday. “It covers about half of Horse Creek.”

Lowrance is racing against a Jan. 1 deadline. By BASS rules, Grand Lake becomes off limits to competitors, and they can no longer collect certain kinds of information from outside sources after that date.

Lowrance will cover all of Grand Lake with its new mapping technology and it will all become public, eventually. They are focusing on key fishing areas — many that were heavily used during the 2013 contest.

Huff said he will have aggregated 600 to 650 individual sonar files to create a Grand Lake map before the cutoff.

If the new technology pays off for a Classic angler, it will be a big — exciting — deal for Lowrance.

“The eyes of the world are on that one body of water that week,” Huff said.

 

Read the entire article by Kelly Bostian and watch the video at TulsaWorld