River Overlays?

[s2welee]

I just got a Venture HC and I am a bit disappointed wit the river coverage on the maps.  Is there a way to make a decent river overlay that might help out with the coverage?  Sorry for the newb question.

Whit
http://www.mypaddlediary.com

[s2welee]

I started with the base maps but then I added the Ibycus 2.0 map set.  I looked at the instructions for custom maps on this page, but topo data is not that important. 

[maps4gps]

What area is the hydro in the Ibycus maps disappointing? 
I used NHD data for hydro in the mapset I created last spring/summer and found some issues with it (website problems prevented wide distribution).  I switched to Census hydro (as used by Ibycus) for my current maps which OZ is hosting; but it also has issues. 

[s2welee]

Perhaps I am not doing something right, because I have large parts of rivers missing.  The two that have jumped out at me so far are the Appomattox River through Petersburg and the James in Richmond.  I can get it to display most of the river, but there are a few miles just missing...

I am working through the tutorial to make the whole state of VA into topo.  Hopefully this will help with the river detail.

[maps4gps]

Looking at the Nov, 2008 Census files, both rivers seems to be complete in those areas.  I no longer have the March, 2008 Census files that Ibycus used and never look at those.  Do you mean the entire width of the river(s), or just portions?  If the boundary between counties (independent city) are in a river, part of the river will be in each county (IC) file.

[s2welee]

Here is an example of what I am seeing.  The track is following the river just a couple of days ago.  If I lay the same track over google earth, I have river...

[maps4gps]

I found it.  You must have been boating/rafting.  The Nov. 2008 Census files have the river filled in.  On the version you posted, I see the shore line, but it was not built into a polygon (by Census ?).  NHD has some sections of rivers like that also. 

[s2welee]

In that case will making my own maps with the tutorial help this situation?  I am processing the Dem fils as I type and I have downloaded the 100k NHD data.   

It appears that the SE USA mapset on this site has a better coverage of rivers, but it only seems to cover about 20 miles of the south of va.

Thanks for the help.

[maps4gps]

It should help.  It all depends what is in the source data - NHD is generally better/more detailed, but does have its own set of issues.  The NHD I downloaded in Nov, 2007 had three features in the James River drainage coded as ice/glacier.  John's SE mapset covered south of 37 degrees; north of 37 is to be in his upcoming NE mapset.  I just finished the 48 states and will continue to upload files by individual state. 
I would highly encourage you to continue you learning process as you are likely to find info from local sources you would like to include or to modify/update source data from being currently onsite.

[-Oz-]

try googling for STATE GIS clearinghouse

change state to the state you're looking for.  You can find a lot of good data that way.  Thats where I got a lot of the extra data I included in Florida.