Good Morning,

I am saving up to purchase a new Sportsman Tournament 234. They come standard with a Garmin GPSMAP 942xs MFD 9" and has a factory cut out area to add a second one. I was hoping to go with Garmin products because they seem like they are good units for both fresh and salt water applications. I am eventually planning on having two graphs at the console and one at the bow. I was also wishing to link the trolling motor to the graphs and eventually planned on adding their panoptix in the future.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the Garmin Force will be quite long enough for that boat in rough water. Current owners are going with 60" (minimum) Minn Kota. So that would mean I would have to switch to Humminbird graphs in order to get the total connectivity that I was hoping for.

I have absolutely no Issue with Humminbird graphs as I have used them in the past. I just hate the idea of getting a new boat which is pre-cut for a specific Garmin, and then selling the provided graph and cutting into the console to mount different ones. So my options seem to be:

1. Keep Garmin products throughout except for the trolling motor and not have the motor connected to the graphs

2. Put Humminbird graphs throughout to connect with a minn kota. This would mean selling the supplied graph and modifying the console.

3. Keep Garmin graphs at the console and put a Humminbird graph at the bow to work with the trolling motor. I would prefer for all graphs to be able to talk to each other and to not have to deal with two different interfaces.

For those that have their trolling motor linked up to their graph, is it a feature that you use enough to be worth all of this nonsense? I'm starting to think that I should just stick with Garmin graphs and use a minn kota TM and just not have them talk to each other. The main reason I would like that feature is I fish by myself often and would like to be able to give the TM a dedicated point to nav to when I just need to cross a small cove. That way I could change rigs, get a snack, etc. The other reason is we go up north to fish for walleye once a year and it would be really nice to just set a path along a certain contour line and let it do the work.

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance you guys can offer. And I completely recognize that these are at the top of the list of first world problems. I've just been saving money for a very long time and want to get everything right.

Congrats on the Sportsman. I've always liked the look of those. The force trolling motor is rated for freshwater and warrantied for 3 years in saltwater. Depending on how much salt you fish you might be better off with riptide.

I used to have a Xi5 linked to my Elite Ti at my console. Used it like one time. Was easier to just use the remote to control it. I've since replaced the Xi5 with an Ulterra and didn't even think about networking.

Yeah, I've been leaning toward just switching everything over to Humminbird if I decide the juice is worth the squeeze regarding everything being connected.



Thanks for your feedback. That's good info because I know certain things sound good in theory or in an advertisement, but then never end up being practically used. I know I don't take advantage of 80% of the [censored] my cell phone can do.

I switched to Humminbird Helix 10's and a Minn Kota Ultrex on mine because I wanted all of them linked together.