Lottabass

Great fishing, great report, two great anglers!

I'll give you my experience with the Eagle Eye 9. Keep in mind I'm not an electronics expert. I mounted it on my 8 ft pond prowler using the mount that is shown on the GG Fishing web site. Our lakes have been high and dirty most of the year so that may affect what the unit shows.
The beam is narrow so seeing fish or a school and staying locked on to them is not easy, especially with a small, bouncy boat. I have not played with the settings much. With the distance set to 70 ft for some reason it gets kinda fuzzy at 40. Out to 40 it is pretty good. Playing with the settings may help but I haven't done that yet. I have learned more about fish than I knew. Many times a fish (crappie or bass) will follow your lure to the boat and not bite it. If they do many times you can watch the whole school follow it to the boat.
My strategy is to use it to find cover before I get to it with the boat. I believe that passing over bass in 5-10 feet of water may inhibit them to bite. Seeing bass would be a bonus. Schools of crappie are easy to see and catch (as long as they don't follow one and end up under your boat)! Telling crappie and bluegills from bass is pretty easy.
I hope this helps somewhat. I will get more use from it but having high, dirty water kinda limits its use, I think.
I would buy it again.

I always troll when moving from one area to another. Why not keep a bait in the water? I use a small boat with electric motor so it's simple to do. A depthfinder helps to fish a certan contour.
Plus it is relaxing, until one tries to break your rod!

This thread seems like an appropriate time to share something with everyone. In 1979 a fellow Iowan, Rick Taylor, wrote a book titled "Guide To Successful Bass Fishing".
At the end of the book he penned the following. (Which is especially pertinent to those of us who experience the hard water season.)

Winter's End
You haven't seen water in months. Memories have been your only sustenance, but lately they've become fuzzy and stale. Both you and your August trophy have put on weight since then, and cabin fever has you washing the landing net. Your fishing buddy called the other day with nothing to say.
Then something strange comes slowly rolling up from the south. There's an odor on the winds once again, it's someone's barnyard thawing out, but it smells sweet just the same. The earth is humming. A billion feisty bass begin swimming up your veins. Winter wasn't so long after all.
Out comes your gear. Fifteen spiders run for their lives. How good it is to see all those cherished, bass nabbing lures again, 80% of which have never been wet. Your favorite rods and reels, abused all year then thrown behind the den door, are now cleaned with so much loving care that muffled laughter is coming from the kitchen.
Undaunted, you retrieve your fishing cap from the kids toy box, your patch jacket from the closet, and boots from the back porch. The door doesn't quite close. The car starts. Tires squeal. Your wife shakes her head.
Another revolution completed.
The cycle goes on.

I think that fishing a lake that you have fished many times but approaching it like you've never been there before has advantages.

@GreenTrout  Good stuff!