Lake St. Clair

[fiker]

I know, it's not officially a Great Lake, but to me it's  GREAT LAKE.

Anyway, you gotta check out this site for an interactive map of the lake.
I've only played w/ it a little bit, but it's really cool.


http://marinecruiser.com

[Dan]

That site is impressive.

[djkimmel]

Wayne Carpenter / Combat Fishing is working with www.marinecruiser.com to provide links to fishing information on the interactive map. Should be a very useful and entertaining tool.

They have a lot planned for the future. Keep watching as this develops.

[fiker]

Wayne told me that the money to run the marinecruiser.com site comes solely from advertising. 

He said that it's important to let the businesses know that you heard of them from the site.  This way the site can continue. 

I can't remember the guys name who designed and built this site.  My apologies to him as he did a fantastic job and derserves the credit.

It seems that if the LSC site is a success, that more lakes in the future are a possibility. 

[Bulletproof]

I'd love to see one of the Saginaw Bay!!!

[djkimmel]

That might be the next idea - Great Lakes sections... or franchises.

[djkimmel]

One of the members wanted to add this site too if you like to see satellite shots of the east Great Lakes:
http://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.cgi/modis?region=e&page=1

[McCarter]

So, tell me a little more about this marinecruiser.com thingy.  I tried to get on the site, but i use dial up and it wont let me view the chart with my low speed connection.

There is a link for dial up users, but it is not available as of yet. 

Is this an actual satellite image of the lake?  and if so, is it updated often or at least daily.

I use the MODIS site a lot to check the mud flows and water clarity on LSC before tournaments.  It really helps to get an idea on where i can and can not fish.

But its pretty hard to see little LSC with that site.

PoorBoy himself

[dartag]

it is a chart of st-clair that you can zoom in to get the contours and depths..     it would need high speed internet..   time to upgrde to cable. 

[Revtro]

It looks like the typical medium quality chart of St. Clair, but when you zoom in, it looks like the NOAA chart.  It has good detail and you can float over things and see GPS coords.  Very cool.

[djkimmel]

Combat Fishing links all over the map too with local fishing information, and links to the Electronic Guide Service downloads for the anglers.

[McCarter]

I got it to work.  It just took some time to download.

Very cool.  But i am having a hard time reading all the additional info on the fishing spots.  the text is too small.  Anyone else have this problem?  I have a 17" monitor.  Is there something i can change in the settings, perhaps?

PoorBoy himself

[Marinecruiser]

I would like to thank everyone for all the kind words; it?s very encouraging to hear some feedback. When your nose is in the computer screen it?s hard to know if you are going in the right direction.

Please remember, this is a site that is UNDER DEVELOPMENT and as such currently has many inaccuracies and omissions. If you know of bait and tackle shops etc. please let us know we will be happy to include them.

We are working hard to fill all 10 categories with up to date accurate information, but, we?re not quite there yet. So, keep looking for updates.

PoorBoy:
I?m sorry about the current bandwidth requirements; we plan to distribute the engine and the chart data on CD in the near future. The last thing I want to do is alienate everyone with a dial-up connection.

PoorBoy wrote: ?Very cool.? But i am having a hard time reading all the additional info on the fishing spots.? the text is too small??
We were afraid of that. The entire chart page is one big flash player window. And the publishing settings are set to automatically scale to fit the width of your browser window. So, if the window is small, so is the text. You can try maximizing the window or set your screen settings to 1024 x 768 or higher.

Revtro:
Actually, when zoomed out the chart is NOAA Chart #14850 1:60,000 scale but when you zoom in it changes to NOAA Chart series 14853 1:15,000 scale.

Although we have worked very hard to keep them accurate, the charts on marinecruiser.com are BASED on NOAA Navigational charts. Since we have modified the original images, and they have not been certified by NOAA, they are NOT INTENDED FOR NAVIGATION.

Check out the ?preferences? panel just under the Lat / Lon display, you can turn on and off the name flags, leaving the icons and choose between three chart types.
The Photo charts are USGS aerial photos for the land and the NOAA charts for the water. The photos were taken in May of 2002.

The ?High Res? chart is only a test. The Lat / Lon and icon placement are not yet working for this one. I just wanted to see if people were interested in higher resolution photos.

Yes, we are working on getting more charts up. The current plan is to put up charts for the St. Clair River, Detroit River and Western Lake Erie in the near future. Farther out on the time line will be the rest of the Great Lakes.

The kind of questions, problems, and comments posted here are exactly what I need to make the site a useful tool that you will come back to on a regular basis.

Thank you again,
Dan Zowada
Marinecruiser.com

[blakstr1]

Yes, we are working on getting more charts up. The current plan is to put up charts for the St. Clair River, Detroit River and Western Lake Erie in the near future. Farther out on the time line will be the rest of the Great Lakes.

Thank you again,
Dan Zowada
Marinecruiser.com

Wow Dan...

Allow me to thank you from the whole board for answering the questions so well, great site...can't wait for the Saginaw Bay Chart!!!

[Revtro]

Yeah, I could tell those were NOAA charts.  At the cost of those charts in the store, it rocks to have it online like this.  I also really like being able to get the GPS coordinates so easily.  Very cool.  Keep up the good work.  I'll be using this site this year.  Can't wait to see more!

[Cheetam]

Ditto on what the others are saying.  Thanks for the hard work Dan.

[fiker]

Yes.  It opens up a lot of fishing opportunities for me.

Thanks for a great job.

Looking forward to your future ventures.

[WayneC]

I met Mr. Marinecrusier.com (Dan Zowada) at the fishing shows when the good guys at the Fishers of Men booth sent him over to me.  As soon as he showed me the color copy of the site, I knew there was something special here.  Dan has made this map available to all for free, and the information it contains will be useful to anyone who uses the water.

It was oh so obvious that my customers would benefit from having Lake St. Clair at their fingertips off of the internet, so I've been letting them know about it.  I use the zoom in feature the most to work on different parts of the lake for research.

Nice work Dan...

[djkimmel]

Hey - you thanked 3 or 4 members there

[Skulley]

Poorboy, try changing some of the settings in your control panel under display.  That may get you some bigger images but you will be losing resolution.  Try that.  If that does not work you may want to get yourself a bigger monitor.  I am using a 19 inch monitor myself so everything I see on mine is big.  Especially that interactive chart.  What a great deal that is.  I think I am going to set up some kind of wireless internet on my boat so that I can use that chart on my laptop.  That would be so cool!!!!!!!   

BD