Baker Lake boat size question

[Matt]

I will speak from personal experience. Last year I took my 20' trophy 2002 walkaround up there with no issues. I saw boats much larger than ours. There was a Seasport that was easily a 26 footer up there as well. It all comes down to what you're comfortable with and what you are TOWING with. That's a lot of weight to take way up in the mountains.

I plan to take my 22' Striper up there this year.

Good luck.

[tbrinks]

I dont know for sure how the USGS or NOAA make decisions on what lakes and rivers to scan for bathemetry charts, but I think its only "navigable waters", so lakes like Baker would not qualify to be scanned. For example, only the lower parts of the Columbia are charted because commercial traffic doesnt go any further up-stream.

The private companies that provide sonar charts - Navionics, C-Map, Garmin, etc,. choose lakes and rivers based mostly on popularity. If they get lots of requests, it gets put on the list of lakes to scan.

There are a great many lakes with hi levels of detail that fluctuate in level due to irrigation/flood control from dams. There are also a lot of lakes with zero data. More get added each year. I have used C-Map, Navionics and now Garmin charts. They cover many of the same bodies of water but when it comes to lakes, some have better coverage from one brand than with another.

I could not find anything for Baker from anyone who offers charts.

Lowrance, Humminbird and Garmin all have options on their better sounders to create your own personal sonar charts of any body of water as you drive around the lake. That takes a long time for a large body of water and will never come close to a professional job.

It looks like Baker it is partially mapped from a user, but will get even better if people upload their sonar logs. This is what Navionics shows now.



If anyone is interested in recording logs to improve logs, it is very easy. Here is a link to tutorials for recording sonar logs for the different brands of units. http://www.navionics.com/en/plotter-tutorial

I have successfully mapped a few lakes that were just blue blobs and now they have detailed 1ft contours. This was done just by mapping every time while I fished. Contact me if you have any questions doing it, I have a few videos on the subject.