Gifts for Fishermen Who Already Own Every Lure

The best answer we know to what you give an angler who already owns every lure is a map of the water itself. Not a decorative lake outline, but a layered birch map in which each wood layer is a depth contour, so the drop-offs, flats, points and holes they have spent years learning by feel are something they can see and touch on the wall.

It works as a Christmas gift, a Father's Day gift, or a retirement gift for someone who has been fishing the same lake since before you were born. Tackle gets lost, replaced and out of date. A map of the lake where they caught their first walleye, or where they and your grandfather fished every June, is the one thing they will not already have in the garage.

Why tackle is the wrong gift and the water is the right one

Serious fishermen buy their own gear because gear is personal. They have opinions about line weight, about which jig head holds a minnow, and about a rod you would never think to question. Anything you pick is a guess, and the guess is usually a duplicate.

What they cannot buy is a picture of the place. Most anglers carry a detailed mental map of one or two lakes: the hump that holds fish in late summer, the creek channel that runs under the old bridge, the shallow flat that warms first in spring. They can rarely show it to anyone else. A depth map does that, and it starts conversations with every visitor who stops in front of it, which is most of what a good gift does.

What the layers actually show a fisherman

Each layer of birch on one of our maps is a slice of the lake bottom at a set depth. The shallowest water is the highest layer, and the bottom steps down in plateaus toward the deepest part. Where the layers sit close together, the bottom drops steeply. Where a layer spreads wide, you are looking at a flat. Shore roads and town names are engraved on top, so the map also reads as a place, not just a diagram.

For someone who fishes, this is the structure that decides where the fish are:

• Points and humps. A narrow finger of a shallow layer reaching into deeper water is a point. An isolated island of shallow wood in the middle of deeper layers is a hump. Both are classic places to find bass and walleye holding between feeding and resting depths.
• Drop-offs. A tight stack of layers is a steep break. Fish travel along these edges, and anglers troll and cast them for exactly that reason.
• Flats and basins. Wide, even layers mark the shallows where fish spawn and feed in spring, and the open deep water where they go when summer heat sets in.
• Old channels. In a lake that was once a river valley, the deepest layers often wind along the original channel. Bass fishermen who work reservoirs spend a lot of time looking for these.

This is the part that makes a depth map more than wall art for an angler. It is a view of the lake they have only ever seen as a surface with a sonar screen laid over it. Our maps are made for hanging and for looking at, not for finding your way on the water.

Picking the lake: where they fish, not where it is prettiest

The right lake is the one they talk about. For many anglers that is not the famous one nearby but a smaller, quieter one. Our Edinboro Lake map is a good example: it covers less than half a square mile of glacial kettle lake, and it is exactly the kind of water people love hardest and know best.

For some, the lake is a big one with a reputation. Lake Erie is the shallow, stormy walleye water that four states and a province share, and its deepest sounding in our data is 205 feet. A map of it suits an angler who has trailered a boat to the Pennsylvania, Ohio or New York shore for decades. Farther east, Chautauqua Lake is seventeen miles long and known for some of the best-known musky water in the East, so its map is a natural present for anyone who has spent a November chasing one fish.

Lake ErieOH · PA · NY · MI · ON · 3D wood depth map · from $149

If your angler fishes for bass in a clear reservoir, Table Rock Lake is a good example: clear White River water behind Branson, surveyed to 220 feet, with long arms and bluffs that show up well in layers. Down the road, Lake of the Ozarks coils 1,150 miles of shoreline through the Missouri hills, at 130 feet at its deepest survey.

Table Rock LakeMO · AR · 3D wood depth map · from $149

In the Southeast, Lake Norman, North Carolina's 'inland sea' of 32,000 acres, reaches 110 feet in our survey data, and Lake Lanier near Atlanta reaches 156 feet. These are among the lakes we map, not a complete list for any state, so search for yours before you decide that the one you want is missing. Our lakes index shows everything we currently have ready to cut.

If their lake is not listed, any of 104,419 US lakes can be made on request. Use search to look for it by name, or commission a map and we will build it.

Choosing a size

Size matters more than most gift buyers expect, because the number of visible contours depends on how much wall the map gets.

• 12 inches, $149. A desk or bookshelf piece, good for a small lake or a first gift where you are not sure of the wall space.
• 17 inches, $249. The usual choice for a den or a hallway, and large enough that the points and humps read clearly.
• 24 inches, $399. Where a map becomes a feature of the room. A big lake with a lot of shoreline detail looks better here.
• 30 inches, $599. For a lake house mantel or a dock-side lodge wall, or for a lake as large as Erie where you want the whole shape to hold.

A rough rule: choose the size for the wall, then check that the lake is not so long and narrow that it will end up as a thin strip. Shipping is free in the lower 48, and a map ships in about 7 to 10 days.

Wording the personal line

At checkout you can add a family or cabin name line, a short message, and a star on any spot on the shore. This is where a good gift becomes a specific one.

• The name line. Keep it short: 'The Kowalski Camp', 'Dad's Lake', or the cabin's actual name. Use what the family already says out loud.
• The message. A date or a few words does more than a sentence. 'Opening day, 1987' or 'Where we caught the big one' lasts better than anything long.
• The star. It sits on the shore, so choose a place on land: the boat launch, the cabin, the point you always park at, the dock. It will be the first thing they look for.

If you are not sure what to write, ask a sibling or a parent what the place is called in your family. The nickname nobody would find on a chart is usually the right one.

Timing for Christmas and Father's Day

Because each map is cut to order in Waterford, Pennsylvania, and ships in about 7 to 10 days, place a Christmas order in early December rather than the week before. For Father's Day in June the same rule applies: order in May and the map arrives without a rush. A lake you do not see listed will take a little longer to set up, so ask early.

About Every Lake maps

Every Lake makes layered, laser-cut birch wood depth maps of real US lakes in Waterford, Pennsylvania, each wood layer a depth contour, with shore roads and towns engraved on top. We make them to order, which is why the lake, the size and the wording can all be yours. For more ideas about lake gifts beyond fishing, see our other guides.

Chautauqua LakeNY · 3D wood depth map · from $149