Move Fishing Spots Between Navionics, Garmin and Lowrance (GPX)

To move fishing spots between Navionics, Garmin, Lowrance, Simrad and Humminbird, export them as a GPX file and import that file on the other side. GPX is the one waypoint format almost every marine app and chartplotter reads. In the Navionics Boating app you open the file and pick Boating. On Garmin you open it in ActiveCaptain and sync to the plotter. On Lowrance, Simrad and newer Humminbirds you load it from an SD card.

Below are the exact steps for each brand, the gotchas we've hit, and how Fish Scouter fits in, since it reads and writes the same GPX files.

What a GPX file carries (and what it doesn't)

GPX is a plain XML text format. Each waypoint is a wpt entry with a latitude, a longitude and a name, and optionally a description, an elevation and a type. That's it.

• Carries: position, name, a description or note, and usually depth (stored as a negative elevation in metres).
• Often lost: icons and colors (every brand uses its own set), folders or groups, photos, and brand-specific fields like "fish here" flags.
• Waypoints vs routes vs tracks: a GPX file can hold all three. Fish Scouter, and some apps, only take the waypoints.

Rule of thumb: put anything you care about in the waypoint's name, like "Ledge 42ft — gag Dec", because the name is the field that always survives.

Step 1: Export your spots from Fish Scouter

1. Open the You tab.
2. Under Spots, tap My spots. This lists every spot you own, including spots you marked on the map, public spots you saved, and marks you imported. Coordinates show in degrees and decimal minutes, the way a plotter wants them typed.
3. Tap Export GPX. You get one file, fish-scouter-spots.gpx, with each spot's name, position, depth (if it has one), your notes and the spot type.

Which plan: GPX export is part of the Captain and Guide plans. GPX import works on every plan, including Angler. The Angler plan holds up to 100 saved spots, and Captain and Guide are unlimited.

Tip: do the export at fishscouter.com on a computer if you're headed for an SD card. It saves a step.

Step 2: Import into your app or plotter

Navionics Boating app (iPhone, iPad, Android)

Navionics added GPX import and export to the Boating app as a subscription feature. You need an active subscription (Menu, Me, Subscription).

1. Get the GPX file onto your phone: email it to yourself, AirDrop it, or save it to Files or Drive.
2. Tap the file and choose Open with or Share, then pick the Boating app.
3. Boating imports the markers. Find them under Menu, Markers.

Exporting out of Navionics is the same in reverse: Menu, then Markers (or Tracks or Routes), select one or more, and share. You get a GPX file you can email or open in another app, such as ActiveCaptain or Fish Scouter.

Navionics' compatible-plotter sync is a separate feature from GPX. If your plotter is paired with the Boating app, markers can move over that way too.

Garmin: ActiveCaptain app

Garmin's free ActiveCaptain app is the bridge between a phone and a Garmin chartplotter. It's also how Garmin itself tells you to move Navionics markers onto a Garmin.

1. Open the GPX file on your phone and choose ActiveCaptain.
2. When the pop-up asks to import user data, tap Import.
3. Find the marks under Chart, Menu, User Data.
4. Connect ActiveCaptain to your chartplotter over Wi-Fi and sync. The waypoints transfer to the plotter.

Garmin's guide covers routes and markers coming from Navionics. Some anglers report routes don't always come across in a GPX file while waypoints do, which is fine for fishing spots.

Garmin: memory card

If your Garmin has a card slot and no ActiveCaptain connection, you can load user data from a card. On an ECHOMAP UHD, Garmin's manual has you insert the card, go to Nav Info, Manage Data, Data Transfer, then choose Merge from Card (adds to what's there) or Replace from Card (overwrites it). Other models put this under User Data instead of Nav Info. Garmin's manual pages don't spell out GPX for every model, and some Garmins save their own files to card in Garmin's .ADM format. Check the manual for your plotter, and pick Merge, never Replace, unless you mean to wipe your marks.

Getting spots off a Garmin: the same Data Transfer menu has Save to Card. If your model writes .ADM rather than GPX, send the marks through ActiveCaptain and share them from there, or convert the file with a tool like GPSBabel.

Lowrance and Simrad (and B&G)

Lowrance, Simrad and B&G units share the same Navico software family and handle files the same way.

1. Copy fish-scouter-spots.gpx to the root of an SD or microSD card the unit accepts.
2. Insert the card, open Files (on many units it's under the Home or Tools menu, then Storage or Files), and pick the memory card.
3. Select the .gpx file and choose Import.

Lowrance's Gen3 manual lists GPX among its user-data formats for importing and exporting waypoints and routes, next to its own USR versions. Some older Lowrance units and fish finders only read USR, so the GPX has to be converted first. Check your manual on Lowrance's downloads page (Simrad has its own) for the formats your unit supports, and back up your existing waypoints to the card before you import anything.

C-MAP app: GPX import and export in the C-MAP phone app has changed across versions. For Lowrance and Simrad plotters, the SD card is the most dependable route.

Getting spots off a Lowrance or Simrad: Files, then Export (or Waypoints, Routes & Trails, then Export on older units), and choose GPX as the format.

Humminbird

Humminbird splits by model line.

• SOLIX, APEX, XPLORE, ONIX and X Series store waypoints, routes and tracks as GPX. Copy the GPX to an SD card and use the unit's import for navigation data, under the Home screen's file or My Data tools.
• HELIX uses Humminbird's own .HWR format. Humminbird says GPX has to be converted to HWR with its free HumminbirdPC software before a HELIX can load it.

Humminbird warns that waypoint data from other sources can corrupt existing Humminbird waypoints. Export a backup to the card first. Humminbird also says the newer lines (APEX, SOLIX, XPLORE, ONIX) can't use HumminbirdPC to convert waypoints from Garmin and Lowrance, so for those units, use a clean GPX file like the one Fish Scouter writes.

Bringing your plotter's marks into Fish Scouter

This is the other half, and it's open to every plan. Export a GPX from your plotter or app (see the "getting spots off" notes above), then:

1. In Fish Scouter, tap the + on the map and pick Import marks, or go to You, Spots, Import marks from a plotter.
2. Choose the GPX file.
3. Fish Scouter reads every waypoint and tells you how many it found and imported. Depths stored in the file come across. Routes and tracks are skipped, since a fishing spot is a point.

Details: up to 1,000 marks per file. A mark with no usable coordinates is skipped rather than failing the whole file. Importing the same position again updates that mark instead of making a duplicate. On the Angler plan, the import has to fit inside your 100-spot limit, and Fish Scouter tells you if a file is too big for it.

Imported marks are private. Nobody else sees them unless you choose to share a spot. Once they're in, every mark gets the same treatment as a public spot: the species in season there this month, and whether the next days' wind suits it.

Gotchas we've hit

Typing a single spot instead

For one or two marks, skip the file. Fish Scouter shows every spot's coordinates in degrees and decimal minutes (for example 27° 17.170' N, 82° 35.971' W), which is the format most plotters use on their go-to screen. Going the other way, Add a spot by coordinates takes the numbers however your buddy wrote them down: decimal degrees, degrees-minutes or degrees-minutes-seconds.

Why we built it this way

Fish Scouter isn't a navigation chart, and it says so. Your plotter and Navionics are for running the boat. Fish Scouter is for deciding where and when to fish: which species are in season at each mark this month, the tide and water temperature, and which days the wind suits each spot. GPX in and out means your marks don't get locked into either one. We think that's how a fishing app should treat your numbers.

Bring your marks in and see what's biting at each one. Try Fish Scouter free. Import works on every plan, and export comes with Captain.