| Frequently Asked Questions |
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| Are you CRAZY! Why would I want to give up my honey-holes? |
No one is asking you to give up your current honey-holes unless you want to give them up.
Net4U is about the entire fishing experience. Surely there's no harm in marking boat ramps,
marinas, bait shops, where to sein for minnows, fishing peers, parking locations etc. to help
someone know more about a fishing location. Also, I've fished a bunch of places I'll never get
back to and will be marking those locations (the ones that produced). What do I care if someone
fishes my honey-holes in Nebraska, Illinois or South Texas when I'm living in North Texas? I don't and you probably
don't either. If you do, then don't mark a fishing spot, but if you know where a boat ramp, camping spot, bait shop or some
other fishing related spot is why not help out?
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| I'm not physically in the United States. Why can't I mark locations? |
Basically, we don't want someone outside the U.S. creating a website management night-mare for us. We know and understand
that there are DOD and State Department personnel stationed around the globe and we want them to be able to post.
However, for these personnel to register they must first contact us and we'll ask for some extra information before
we allow them to post. Bottom-line is that this is a United States of America ONLY website and we only want U.S.
citizens marking spots.
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| What do the different icons on the map indicate? |
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| What's considered a lake, river or sea/ocean location? |
For simplicity a LAKE is any body of fresh water surrounded by land. Size and depth doesn't
matter. Also, any stream, creek, or river is considered a RIVER. In addition, anything
on our coast-line or within 12 miles of our coast-line is considered a SEA/OCEAN. Since we can't go
everywhere some locations are a guess based on the information we could find about that
location. That's where you come in. We need your help if our guess turns out to
be inaccurate. Please let us know and we'll fix it. (Particularly in remote places or places
along the coast where fresh water lakes are identified.)
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| Nothing works when I try viewing a location. I can't see the markers or anything! |
Net4U is programmed to take advantage of some advanced features in newer internet browsers. Net4U is
best viewed and works properly using Internet Explorer 6.x
(get the latest IE browser) or Netscape 7.x
(get the latest NS browser).
The latest version of FireFox (get the latest Firefox browser) should also work. The Mac Safari browser may have some issues. However, WebTV users
will experience problems using Net4U.
If you're experiencing problems using Net4U, first try upgrading
your browser. If that fails to work, then download and install a different browser.
Note: To mark a spot you
MUST allow cookies. In addition, please turn off your popup blocking software. We pop up new windows when displaying
a lake and when marking spots. We DO NOT and WILL NOT use popups for pushing ads on our users.
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| Why are there so many lakes with the same name? How can I tell which one is which? |
There really are that many lakes with the same name in each state. Hard to believe but there
are. What we're doing is putting a dash, a city or other location next to the name of the lake in
an effort to distinguish them better. Until this work is completed, the only way to tell the difference is to view each one. Note: There
are some duplicates and we're working to eliminate those.
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| A lake in my state isn't listed, and/or you've given it the wrong name, and/or it doesn't have any information about it. What's up? |
We either overlooked it, haven't gotten that far or just plain messed up. There are more than 150,000
lakes and reservoirs in the U.S. and we're scouring as many resources as we can to locate, identify, and provide
information about each body of water. Again, we need your help to fix anything we've missed or
mis-identified. This is a labor of love for us, but we're not perfect and omissions and mistakes
are bound to happen. Let us know the particulars and we'll fix it.
By the way, Net4U is based in Texas and
that's where we're starting with our updates.
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| Why doesn't Net4U show all of the fishing spots for one state instead of listing them? |
Good question. The reason is simple. Most states have at least a few hundred fishing
spots identified (others have thousands). If we loaded all of them for a state, it would most likely bring
your computer to a slow crawl (not to mention our servers). That would be a ton of information uploading
to your computer. However to help narrow your search, we've provided a search by zipcode that will list fishing spots
within a limited radius of 20 - 200 mile selection. Default search radius is 20 miles.
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| A lake within 40 miles of my zip code will not show up. Why? |
When doing a search for lakes using a zip code there are two factors that determine whether or not a lake
is listed. 1) Where the zip code coordinates are located. 2) Where the coordinates for the lake marker is located.
The zip code coordinates were taken from the U.S. Federal Government's zip code data bank. That data could contain hundreds of
coordinates mapping out the zip code area. Net4U used only one of those coordinate pairs. Also, when locating and identifying
lakes we chose those locations in an effort to keep the marker off of the lake. We did this to enable fisherman to have
as much access as possible to mark more important spots. The zip code search could easily miss a lake you're looking for
due to where the zip code coordinates and the lake marker coordinates are in relation to one another.
Solution: Increase the radius
distance. If that body of water still doesn't show within your zip code search, use the search at the top (Find a Zip) to find a zip code near
that body of water and search using that zip code. If that doesn't work, please let us know the state, the closest city/town and the name of the lake and we'll
get it uploaded.
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| How do you determine which city to display for local weather information? |
Lakes don't have zip codes. And, since there is no way Net4U could possibly know all of the cities near a lake,
we use the lake's marker coordinates and incrementally search for the first zip code near the lake marker. It's not an exact
algorithm, but we're darn close. Close enough to where the weather conditions/forecast for that area would be accurate enough to
plan your fishing trip.
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| Why aren't there any rivers and sea/ocean fishin' spots available? |
We're still very busy working on the lakes. These fishing locations are also different from lakes because there just isn't one location
for a river or coastline. We're working on it and you should start seeing these locations showing up. Please DO NOT MARK any of those fishing
spots at this time. You'll be wasting your time because as we get the river/ocean spots in the database yours will not be
properly associated with those locations.
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| When marking a spot I used the wrong marker, how can I change it? |
At this time Net4U doesn't allow editing of markers once you've saved it. Please contact us
until we get this capability up and running and we will fix it. This also applies whether you put the
marker in the wrong location, or typed the wrong information. Let us know the state, location (lake/river/sea),
which marker to fix and what needs fixin'.
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| Why does it take so long to get my markers uploaded? |
Most markers should be uploaded within 72 hours. However, since we try to safe-guard fishermen
by reviewing each posting (before displaying it) there might be a delay because there's a bunch to review.
Don't dispair. We'll get your information uploaded ASAP. If you feel that it is taking too long, please
contact us and we'll look into it. Note: When fishermen are able to
edit their own markers these edits will also be reviewed before updating the website.
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| Can I get notified when a spot is marked at one of my favorite lakes? |
Yes you can. By clicking the graphic "Notify Me" on each page where a lake, river or sea/ocean spot
is displayed. A window will popup. Enter your email and we'll let you know (does not require creating an account) and click
the submit button. Anytime a marker is uploaded for that location you'll receive an email letting
you know. We're also working on providing for notices based on your zip code (within so many miles).
Note: Each of these "Notify Me" emails will contain a link for you to unsubscribe
from receiving these types of notices.
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| Why can't I zoom in all the way on some fishin' spots with the Satellite or Hybrid view? |
That's a limitation of Google Maps. If a fishin' spot is located within a few miles of a large
city you should be able to zoom in all the way. Unfortunately, it seems that areas which are more than 15 miles from a
metropolitan area are limited on the zoom capability.
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| Sometimes, why does it take so long for a map to show up? |
Either Net4U and/or Google Maps is serving a whole bunch of requests which will make it substantially slower.
Or perhaps your connection is experiencing a slow down.
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| Net4U has identified my private lake. How can I get it removed? |
We apologize for that. We don't always know what's private and what's public. We just know it's a lake. Please contact us
with specific information about your private lake and we'll remove it. Which ever you prefer.
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| What new features is Net4U planning? |
We're planning several new features and they're somewhat secret. However, one new feature that you should be seeing shortly is being able to have a grouping of
locations that you typically want to look at. For example, in North Texas there are at least 10 lakes that we enjoy fishing. We discovered
that it gets pretty old searching via zip code when we only want these 10 lakes to view and/or mark spots.
What we're NOT planning to do
(EVER) is set up a forum at Net4U. Why? Well first, that's not what we want to do. There are currently hundreds of forums throughout the
United States in each state doing what they do best (giving recommendations on anything related to fishing in that area). Net4U is about helping fishermen
find fishing locations, how to get there, where to fish, launch a boat, camp, park, picnic etc. |
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