Anglers who run their own boat work a depth problem first: the flats skiff on a tide window, the bass boat on a lake point, the center console on a channel edge at first light. Helm is built around depth, so the chart that keeps you off a bar is the same chart that shows you where the bottom falls away.
Drop a marker anywhere on the chart, name it, and it stays. Saved spots sync across your devices along with your routes, tracks and logbook, so a mark you set with wet hands at 6am is on the iPad when you plan the next trip.
A saved spot in Helm sits on real data: the depth shading around it, the contour it sits on, the date the sounding was taken, and what the tide is doing to that number at the hour you plan to fish.
Fish hold on edges, and edges show up on a chart that has enough depth behind it. Helm builds its shading and contours from NOAA electronic navigational charts, USACE eHydro dredging surveys and state lake elevation data, then applies the live tide from NOAA CO-OPS on top. CATZOC, the chart's own confidence rating, sits on the chart with them.
Three things anglers look for read straight off the chart. The break where four feet becomes fourteen along a channel edge. The point on a lake that tapers out and drops into an old river bed. The spoil bank beside a dredged cut, which eHydro surveyed after the last dredge.
The measure tool gives you distance, bearing and a depth profile along the line you draw, including where the shallowest point falls. Run a line from the grass edge out across the drop and you see how far off the bank the break sits and how steeply it goes.
Enter your draft once. Helm shades the water that is too thin for your hull and plans routes around it instead of drawing a straight line through a two foot shoal. On a back country flat, that is the difference between a route you can run and a route you have to pole.
Helm records each trip to a logbook you can replay. You found fish in a bend with no name and it was too good to stop and tap the screen. Open the logbook afterward, replay the track, and put the mark on the exact water you were over. Next season you go back to a spot instead of a general area.
Helm shows NOAA CO-OPS tide predictions against the MLLW datum, and tidal current arrows that rotate as you scrub forward in time. Scrub to the hour you plan to fish and watch which way the water will move through a creek mouth. This is how you plan an inlet on a falling tide, or a bar that fishes for the two hours of outgoing water.
Animated wind, wave and current overlays run over the chart, and a multi-day strip breaks the forecast into three hour columns for wind, gusts, air temperature and rain, with water temperature alongside them. Read the strip the night before and pick your morning.
| What you want to know | Where Helm gets it |
|---|---|
| Depth under the keel right now | NOAA ENC, USACE eHydro surveys and state lake elevation data, adjusted by the live tide from NOAA CO-OPS |
| How much to trust that number | The survey date on the measurement, plus CATZOC, the chart's own confidence rating |
| High water, low water and which way the current sets | NOAA CO-OPS predictions against MLLW, with current arrows tied to the time you scrub to |
Marsh fifteen miles behind the ramp, a reservoir down in a canyon, an offshore run past the last tower. Helm has 161 downloadable chart packs. With the pack for your water on the device, charts, depth, routing, the measure tool and the anchor alarm all work with no cell service.
Depth, speed over ground and course over ground sit on one strip, so you can hold a contour by watching a single line. The anchor alarm wakes you if the boat drags off the hole you anchored on. A night chart style keeps a pre-dawn run readable, and satellite imagery shows the shape of a flat and the shoreline behind it.
The AIS layer puts live vessel traffic on the chart you are navigating with. Vessels that carry an AIS transponder show with their position, their vessel type from the ITU-R M.1371 type codes and their movement status, so an anchored tanker reads differently from one under way. The visible area refreshes about every ten seconds while the layer is on, so you can tell the shrimp boat crossing your drift from the tug that wants the channel.
Helm also runs on CarPlay and puts the chart on the vehicle's built-in screen on the tow to the ramp.
Yes. Drop a marker anywhere on the chart, name it, and it stays. Saved spots sync across your iPhone and iPad along with your routes, tracks and logbook.
Read the depth contours and shading, then draw a line across the area with the measure tool. Helm returns a depth profile along that line, so a break or a ledge shows up as a step with the shallowest point marked.
Yes. Download the chart pack for your area first. After that, charts, depth, routing, the measure tool and the anchor alarm all work with no cell service.
Yes. Every trip is recorded to a logbook you can replay, so you can replay an old trip, mark the exact water you were over, and navigate back to it.
Yes. Lake depth comes from state elevation surveys, so inland water carries contours you can fish to.
Scrub the timeline to the hour you are thinking about. Helm shows the NOAA CO-OPS tide prediction for that moment and rotates the tidal current arrows to match.
Helm Boating