OK, now that I have your attention, here are the details. This was a new one for me, also. Turns out the DNR has posted, at present, 51 different Indiana lake maps online for downloading. All are in a .pdf format which lets you then zoom in for detail. These aren't some cheesy old black and white line maps either. If you look at the sample picture (left), you'll see these are nice, bright yellow contour lines, usually in 5' increments or better, overlayed onto a satellite image of the lake.
The only bad part, which won't be 'bad' if you live or fish the northern half of the state, is that all but 3 of the posted maps are in the natural lakes region. They do have Griffy, Yellowwood and Starve Hollow for us southern folk, though. For more information, visit the following DNR web pages.
Have you played around with the IndianaMap project? I've been using it for other purposes and also searching for bathymetry layers but cannot find much in the public catalog. I know that surveys have been done on some lakes with contours up to 1'. These are often associated with weed/grass surveys which would be a great addition to a normal contour map but I can't put my finger on the actual layer, just the descriptions.
Any update on your map tease from a few weeks back :)
Posted by: aaronb | February 11, 2011 at 10:22 AM
Aaron - I played with it a little when it first came out, but haven't messed around with it much lately. I just went to the site a minute ago to see what might have changed, but I keep getting an error saying it can't display the map. In the past, I've either had really slow connections that took forever to get to a layer I wanted, or errors with the program to where I can't get anything at all. Perhaps it's just my computer.
On my little tease, I've played with it a bit more. Having issues with the file type getting corrupted every time I try and e-mail it, which has been a small set back. Google won't allow you to use "Earth" for your own commercial purposes, at least not without their blessing, which is probably more involved than I want to get. On a positive note though, I have been able to get shoreline configurations to synch with contour data, so I can create a nice traditional printable map with the hi-res contours. Just trying to get scale correct at the moment and may go that route. We'll see...
Posted by: Big Indiana Bass | February 11, 2011 at 10:42 AM
I have fished southern Indiana lakes in the Greene/Sullivan forest area for 50 years and sure do hope this continues down toward this way, granted most of these are strip pits but there are many other manmade and natural lakes also, from Monroe Co. on to the south end of Indiana. Thanks
Posted by: bassman62 | February 11, 2011 at 12:59 PM