Maps Unique, Inc. was established in 1988 by Capt. Chip Berry of Garden City Beach, South Carolina. Chip is an avid offshore fisherman and former charterboat skipper where he, along with his father and brothers began bluewater fishing more than twenty-five years ago. The development of Maps Unique began as a concept in 1983 to assemble information on prime offshore habitats along the Southeastern US. The target audience at that time was primarily the Berry’s and the fishing team crew aboard their 42 Hatteras, “Berry-Cuda”, as they competed in the growing number of Marlin Tournaments in the Carolina’s Chips fishing buddies were always coming around wanting to peek at and get copies made of his on-going data assembly, which many referred to, as the “unique maps”. Thus was born “Maps Unique”.   Encouragement then led to making his creation available for other fisherman along the Southeast Coast as a published series of detailed Bathymetric/Hardbottom fishing maps.

Chips many years of offshore travel in search of prime fishing habitat gave him the needed experience to research and assemble data of interest to the near-shore and offshore angler. Bathymetric information showing detailed bottom topography as a base was essential for depicting ledges, ridges, troughs and other irregular underwater features. Plotting the location and distribution of natural occurring live-bottoms was also very important for the founder as these limestone reef outcrops create some of the ocean’s most productive habitat. The ever-growing deployment of artificial reefs and wreck structures on Maps Unique insures that even the angler who ventures just off the beach has access to prime fishing habitat.