With the Navionics app, I can get detailed weather forecasts and weather buoy data. When planning to pre-fish for a tournament, I like to know all the details about the elements. One nice feature, unfortunately only on iPhone/iPad, is Timeline.

There is also the ability to get daily chart updates, Dock-to-dock Autorouting, Navigation Module, Advanced Map Options, Plotter Sync, Weather & Tides. With a Navionics+ subscription, it includes downloads of Nautical Chart, SonarChart™, and Community Edits that stays on the phone or tablet even if the subscription expires. No water needed and the app itself is free. It gives me the advantage of scouting on the go, anywhere, on my time. Navionics mobile apps, on the other hand, give me many added features in my scouting quest. These are all available on Navionics mobile apps as well. Other settings display units in various measurements and the notable “Community Edits”. That said, it is invaluable if you need it. For bass fishing, safety depth is not as big of an issue as it would be for some larger boat configurations. The Chart Viewer site gives me several basic options to include satellite and terrain overlay as well as safety depth shading up to 60 feet. There are many marine electronics manufactures that support Navionics mapping cards. I also study using their app on my tablet and phone not to mention my favorite Lowrance HDS Carbon.

I view these maps on several sources to include your web browser on the Navionics web site Chart Viewer on my computer. When you are looking for underwater structure, such as saddles, flats and humps, it is invaluable I know where to start. Navionics has detailed maps that give me down to one foot contours. If I want to make quick work in finding productive fish, I start with a full study of topographic maps. This is were good scouting an knowledge comes into play. Although competition is fierce, fishing pressure is even more fierce. Fishing can be an extremely competitive sport that is full of secrets and social clicks. One of the most difficult questions to get a straight answer to and most asked question of any professional angler is how do you find fish on a body of water? Most answers are usually vague at best, if you get an answer at all. Science is just as much a part by its definition as the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experimentation. The definition of art is a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice. As a bass angler, I find that locating the perfect fishing spots are both an art and a science.

Navionics lakes list