The boating here happens on small water. Union Lake is the largest named lake the Delaware pack carries at 865 acres, and Big Round Pond is the only other named lake in it that clears a square kilometer. A long run is measured in minutes. You are never far from a bank, which means the questions worth answering before you launch are where the old stream channel runs under the flat and how far off the shoreline you can idle once the pool comes down in late summer.
The pack carries 819 charted water bodies. Of those, 295 are named and 524 are charted without a name. Two named lakes pass a square kilometer, Union Lake at 3.5 and Big Round Pond at 1.9. Inland depth in Helm is built from state elevation surveys, and the water bodies come from the National Hydrography Dataset, which is why a pond held behind an old mill dam is charted water here instead of an empty blue shape.
The pack holds 819 separate pieces of water, and the size figures tell you what kind of water it is. Only two of the named lakes in it clear a square kilometer. Everything else sits under that mark, which is pond size: a dam at one end and a creek coming in at the other, with an arm or two off the main body.
A pond does not need a name to be charted. Of the 819, 295 carry a name and the other 524 do not, and the unnamed ones are charted the same way as the rest. The outline comes from the same dataset and the depth comes from the same state surveys. A fair amount of the water worth knowing in this pack has no name printed anywhere at the pull off.
What a count like that buys you in practice is simple. The pond you drive past on the way to the one you meant to fish is already on the chart, with an outline that matches the water and contours to read before you decide to back in there instead.
| Lake | Charted surface area |
|---|---|
| Union Lake | 4 km² (865 acres) |
| Big Round Pond | 2 km² (469 acres) |
The twelve largest named lakes the Delaware pack carries, by charted surface area, measured from the chart polygon itself. The pack carries 819 charted water bodies in all, 295 of them named, and 2 named lakes larger than one square kilometer.
There is no NOAA chart for a millpond. NOAA charts the coast and the navigable rivers, and a pond held behind a dam well up a creek is not on any of that. Inland depth in Helm is built from state elevation surveys instead, and the water bodies themselves come from the National Hydrography Dataset. That is the difference between a lake that is a blue shape on a map and a lake you can plan a line across against your own draft.
A pond behind a dam sits at whatever level it is being held at that week, and a contour is drawn against a surveyed surface. When the pool is down, the water under you is thinner than the contour says by however far it is down. That is worth a look at the dam before you back the trailer in. Water going over the spillway means the pond is at full pool and the numbers read as drawn. A dry band of concrete above the waterline tells you how much to take off everything you read that day.
The contours also show the old stream channel, which on an impounded pond is the deepest continuous line of water in it. That is the line that stays open when the flats on either side of it go thin, and on a pond you have not run before it is the first thing to find.
Union Lake is the largest named lake the pack carries. It measures 3.5 square kilometers, or 865 acres, taken off the chart polygon itself rather than off a sign at the ramp. Big Round Pond is the next one down at 1.9 square kilometers and 469 acres. Set them beside each other and Union Lake is not quite twice the water.
Those two are the only named lakes in the pack over a square kilometer. The other 293 named lakes and ponds sit below that mark, and the difference shows up in how a day goes. On 865 acres you can put the ramp out of sight behind you and find a chop of your own by mid afternoon. On 469 acres you are working a shoreline most of the day, and the number that matters is the contour at the back of each arm, where the water shallows up before the map suggests it does.
Plan it at the kitchen table the night before and you arrive knowing where to slow down. Draw a line from the ramp to where you mean to fish and the shallowest point along it is marked rather than averaged into a friendlier number. On a run this short, that one figure is most of the question.
The rest of what is on the water with you:
The packs are cut to a box rather than to a state line, so water sitting near an edge is carried by the neighboring pack as well. If you launch on both sides of the Maryland line, download both before you go, since once a pack is on the device none of it needs a signal.
Inland lake depth comes from state elevation surveys rather than from nautical charts, and a reservoir sits at whatever level it is being held at that week. Treat the shape and the depth as a guide, keep a lookout, and verify locally.
Yes. Union Lake is the largest named lake the Delaware pack carries, 3.5 square kilometers or 865 acres measured from the chart polygon. The depth on it is built from state elevation surveys, so the water itself has contours and a depth number on it, read against the draft you entered. Once the pack is downloaded it works at the ramp with no signal.
The pack carries 819 charted water bodies. 295 of them are named and the other 524 are charted without a name. Two of the named ones are over a square kilometer, Union Lake at 865 acres and Big Round Pond at 469 acres, and the remaining 293 named lakes and ponds are smaller than that.
Probably both. The packs are cut to a box rather than to a state line, so a pond near the edge is carried by the Delaware pack and by the Maryland one. Download whichever covers the water you run most, add the other if you regularly put in across the line, and both keep working at a ramp with no service.
Helm Boating