Bass Tracker Pro 175 TF (needed small boat)
Primarily fishing bass but plan to target crappie at times as well
Small Private Lake (Lake Kiowa - 600 acres) so mapping not big concern and will not fish other lakes with this setup
Budget $8-12k

A friend of a friend who fishes tournaments recommended:
Minn Kota Ultrex 80lb
Garmin 93SV w/LiveScope Transducer
(2) Lowrance Elite FS 9

All seem like solid choices. We are beginners so much of this is overkill but have strong preference to just make the upfront investment to get it all setup in one shot and not have to mess with a lot of add-ons/upgrades/swaps down the road.

I’m really curious on the benefits of going all-in on one brand. I’m pretty sold on LiveScope over ActiveTarget which would push towards Garmin. Adding Force and EchoMap Ultras and having completely wireless connectivity all in one ecosystem sounds pretty attractive. Simplicity is a priority, and while it all sounds good how easy they play well together, I have no idea if that translates into actual ease of use benefits.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Kiowa runs almost directly north/south and doesn’t have many places to hide from the wind

I’d spend more on the trolling motor (80lb is about right for a tin boat less than 19ft) and strongly consider spot lock and spend less on the fish finders.

Thanks! Agree it gets pretty windy up there.

Any thoughts on benefits of going all Garmin (Force, EchoMap Ultras w/LiveScope) vs Combination (Ultrex + Lowrance HDS Live + Garmin 93sv for LiveScope)?

All the major electronics companies are very good these days
I really like some aspects of Lowrance mapping (flexibility and utility with some 3rd party software)
However, if making my own maps wasn’t a concern; I’d just go straight Garmin.

If you're itching to spend $12k, then by all means, load that boat up. But as someone with a place on Kiowa, who bass fishes fairly regularly up there (less than I did a few years ago), I'm just going to be honest with you--that's a lot of fire power for that little lake. Don't get me wrong--you'll enjoy playing around with the technology, but just don't feel like you need to have it out there.

If you go with one brand as garmin it will network and if you go with the force you can either 24v or 36v just depends on how much power you want. I went all garmin because the talk to each other and it is nice. My garmin force 36v goes over 4 mph on my boat..As Carroll said how much power do you need on a small lake? If you fish at other lake like Ray roberts it is nice to have the power and the graphs.

With the rules up there; I have the impression that your boat is essentially quarantined to Kiowa; they don’t want you taking your boat to other bodies of water.

I went from humminbird to all garmin including the force and livescope, couldn't be happier with my decision.

one advantage of the force trolling motor is you can run it on either 24 or 36 volts, no modifications needed.

I have 3 93sv plus, the force, livescope and all in around 8k with wiring and mounts etc.

Electronics is subjective, but spot lock for sure. If you have a depth finder that is connected to your trolling motor, you can pull up to a brush pile and tell the trolling motor to spot lock on a waypoint. It is very nice....

Good luck

Thanks everyone for the feedback and suggestions! They were extremely helpful in narrowing choices down and making a decision.

Here is where we landed (all Garmin):
50" Force (running at 24V)
106SV w/transducer
106SV w/o transducer
Panoptix LiveScope system

Should be able to sell the Minn Kota Edge and Lowrance Finder that came with boat for something. And I'm lucky I split this place/boat with a buddy which eases the sting a bit;)

I am sure this is overkill for our lake and skill level (as several pointed out) but what can I say....I'm a gadget geek and love new technology. It may be a bit of a waste but as long as we have some fun with it I'm okay with that.

Great community on this site and look forward to learning more and hopefully contributing back once I become more knowledgeable.

Excellent choices