more advice
There's lots of good advice here. The unit I'm familiar with is Raymarine with the navionics hotmap chart card. That's a bit expensive, but good. You don't mention your boat, so it's hard to recommend a fixed unit like the Raymarine or a handheld/portable device. If you can, try out different ones to find the one you're most comfortable with.
It bears repeating that there is absolutely no substitute for knowing the lake with chart, compass, and a large dose of common sense! A GPS is indeed a very useful tool, but it is just a high tech tool which can fail along with its human user. "Belmont Resident" alludes to a boater who ran up on Eagle Island a few years ago and claimed that the island was not on his GPS chart. He was correct - he had the state highway map in the GPS, not the lake chart. Never knew the difference and was out at night in total ignorance. One should never go out on the sea with only a GPS and without your chart, compass, sextant, and nautical almanac - nor out on the lake without your chart, compass, and thorough knowledge.
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