OUTDOORS
Fork fishing guide aims to take guesswork out of navigating boat lanes
By MATT WILLIAMS
Contributing Writer
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Lance Vick is a veteran Lake Fork fishing guide who enjoys tinkering around with computers. He is especially fond of those electronic fish finder/GPS units anglers use to find fish and feel their way around reservoirs. A GPS can be particularly helpful when navigating on a strange body of water.
Vick recently combined his two passions to create a mapping software program called BOATLANESdotCOM. Once downloaded into a GPS system, the data provides a series of easy-to-follow waypoints that appear on the depthfinder screen whenever the "map" mode for a specific lake is activated. The data is stored on a plug-and-play MultiMedia flash card that is compatible with Lowrance, Humminbird and Navionics mapping packages.
 Photo by Matt Williams |
The system is designed to help take the guesswork out of navigating safe travel routes on a number of East Texas lakes. The guide chose to launch the project on his home lake, Lake Fork. But not just because it was convenient.
Fork can be a treacherous lake to navigate, especially for a first-time visitor. Most of the standing timber was left intact in the reservoir basin before it filled in the early 1980s. The majority of timber has since decayed, leaving behind thousands of stumps that lie just beneath the surface of the water.
Vick says the lake's primary boat lanes are marked by a buoy system put in place years ago by the Sabine River Authority, but it has some flaws.
To wit:
There are stretches where buoys are spaced so far apart that it can be tough to stay on a steady course from one buoy marker to the next. Intersections and corners are not clearly marked in some places.
"There are quite a few holes in the current buoy system," Vick says. "In some cases, buoys are missing or may have moved off course for one reason or another. That can get you into trouble on this lake, because some of the lanes are really narrow. Veer to the right or left just a little bit and you can knock a hole in a boat or tear up the lower unit on an outboard in a heartbeat."
More than a decade of experience has taught Vick where he can and can't run on Lake Fork. BOATLANESdotCOM packs the valuable experience into a tiny computer chip that fits into the hard drive of a compatible GPS unit.
It takes less than a minute to install the data using easy-to-follow instructions. Vick also has posted tutorial videos on his website (www.boatlanes.com) that go through the process step-by-step. Once loaded, the data is filed in the memory of the hard drive until you delete it. The BOATLANESdotCOM chip can then be stored for safe keeping.
"I have had a lot of people hire me over the years just to learn how to get around out there," Vick said. "That is basically what gave me the idea to do this. It is something that will help all the anglers get around easier."
Vick created the program by driving the lake's boat lanes and marking waypoints at steady intervals along the way. The Lake Fork chip contains more than 300 live waypoints that mark boat lanes, boat ramp routes and even few "guide trails" through the woods.
He recommends using the program in combination with "Trackline Extension," a menu option that comes pre-loaded into newer Lowrance and Humminbird units. TrackLine Extension creates a pointer line that allows for precise navigation between waypoint markers.
Vick said he plans to expand the BOATLANESdotCOM library to include lakes Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend by the time spring rolls around.
"I expect there will be a little more instruction with those chips, because the water levels on those lakes are so prone to fluctuate from one year to the next," Vick said. "There are marked boat lanes on Toledo Bend that are safe to run when the lake is full, but they may not be so safe when the water level gets low."
BOATLANESdotCOM sells for $29.95. To learn more, check out www.boatlanes.com or contact Vick, 903-312-0608.
