Fish open water this fall to catch winter fish through the ice

“Insight Genesis offers several fish-finding tools that are simply not available with any other flasher/depth finder system on the market,” says Lowrance Pro-Staffer Reid Miller.

A tool designed for open-water fishing will help you pull more fish through the ice this winter – Insight Genesis, Lowrance’ custom lake-mapping service.

“Insight Genesis offers several fish-finding tools that are simply not available with any other flasher/depth finder system on the market,” says Lowrance Pro-Staffer Reid Miller. “It’s an extraordinary tool, which I’m using extensively in the open-water season to improve my ice-fishing success this winter.”

Insight Genesis is the innovative, online service that empowers anglers to create custom lake maps from sonar data recorded with the Lowrance sonar unit on their own boats. If you record sonar logs while fishing from the boat in the late fall, the maps you create will help you find fish through the ice in the winter.

Did South Dakota angler find burial mounds on lake bottom?

When South Dakota angler Paul Stark reviewed a custom fishing map he made with Insight Genesis, he discovered on the lake bottom what he believes could be Native American burial mounds.

“We have them by other lakes in this area of South Dakota,” Paul says.

Indeed, ten burial mounds in the Oakwood Lakes area in nearby Brookings, SD, are “typical of numerous such mounds in eastern South Dakota,” according to the text on a state historical marker there. Those mounds, dated about A.D. 300 to A.D. 1400, according to the historical marker, are probably the remnants of late Woodland or Middle Missouri Cultures.

“All of the mounds are strikingly similar about 3-6 feet high and about 100-150 feet in diameter,” the historical marker reads. “The so-called ‘Mound Builders’ made pottery, stone hammers and projectile points which may still be found in the area. … It is believed that the mounds were built by individuals who carried baskets of earth on their heads and then dumped the dirt to form mounds.”

Shown at one-foot contours at the bottom of a 424-acre lake near Madison, SD, the humps Stark discovered have such steep sides that they appear “almost 3D” on his Insight Genesis map, he says.  “Now that is detail on the humps! Man, I love mapping lakes and seeing stuff like this!”

Paul’s screenshot of these unique lake-bottom structures is this week’s Insight Genesis Hump Day “Hump of the Week.” Have you used Insight Genesis to locate bottom structure not shown previously on any other lake map? Post a screen shot on the Insight Genesis Facebook page and we might feature YOU in our next Hunp of the Week spotlight.  (Click “Continue Reading” to see larger screen shots and learn more)

Community spirit: Paul Stark volunteers to map lakes to help YOU catch more fish!

Lewis and Clark have nothing on Paul Stark. Sure, the famous explorers mapped a fair share of South Dakota’s plains back in the day. Mad props to ‘em. But for the last few months, Stark has led a one-man Corps of Discovery to map lakes across The Rushmore State.

And he wants to share his fishing maps with you and all your fishing buddies. And with all their fishing buddies. And with … well, everyone.

“On an online forum I’m on, I ask other forum members what local lakes they would like to see mapped,” Stark explains. “I try to map all those lakes and then tell the forum readers that my maps of those lakes will be available soon on Insight Genesis Social Map. It stirs up some excitement when good maps are finally available for poorly mapped – or un-mapped – lakes in the area.”

It’s just that unselfish community spirit that makes Insight Genesis Social Map possible.