buildinit

Hello, I'm Luke. I'm hoping to get some help from people who may have navigated this path before me. Thanks in advance to anyone. A little background if you care: I started entering a few bass tournaments here in Wisconsin last year and had descent success based on my experiences growing up fishing. This spring up here in Northern Wisconsin has been a challenge over the past few weeks. I've struggled catching bass, finding bass, and getting bites. The water temps are in the 40's. During the summer I can see the structure the fish are on and can catch them well enough. This spring has been a different story. I caught 0 the first tournament then 3 this last tournament. The winning bags have been 20lbs the first tournament and 24lbs the second tournament. I'm OBVIOUSLY not skilled enough, yet. The day after the second tournament I went fishing on a lake and was determined to fish in deeper water. It took me 6 hours to find a crib, drop a jig and catch a smallmouth in 20 feet of water on a lake I didn't know. It was painful but humbling at the success. During this experience, I realized that electronics are extremely important, far more important that I realized last year during the summer or any other point before that. It took me 20 minutes to identify through sideimaging a crib (on an improperly working Humminbird 997c without GPS) and finally get over the top of it. I realized how important GPS on a unit with Sidescan and a trolling motor to take me to the waypoint are. My fishing abilities are extremely limited by my technology currently, in my opinion. Over the past few nights I have been researching endlessly on why so many boats I compete against have up to 4 large monitors on them, and now I know why. They can see the fish, then catch them. Opinion: What I have determined is that the Garmin Panoptix(sp?) is a superior unit for seeing fish and my bait around the boat compared to the Humminbird. I also realize how valuable a new Minn Kota with iPilot Link is (and Mega imaging +). But from what I can tell, the Garmin does not have the features capable of using all of the Minn Kota, which would require me to buy a Humminbird locator with Lakemaster as well. Questions: Am I understanding the following correctly: 1) I would need a Humminbird locator to identify the structure and set the waypoints, to 2) Navigate to the structure and have the trolling motor take me there, I would need the Minn Kota iPilot (i'm getting the Link if I do it). 3) While on the structure to see the fish moving around me etc, I would need a Garmin locator 4) Linked with the Panoptix Trolling motor transducer mount 5) Would I need the Panoptix Transom mount and other hardware also? I have seen the Humminbird 360 and would prefer to stay away from it if I'm going to be spending the big bucks on the Panoptix. I added all of the items to my cart on a online Outdoor Merchandise company and the cost is SIGNIFICANT, but I would imagine the investment would be worth it once I train myself, scan the lakes and waypoint structure, and get accustomed to the technology. Thanks for any input based from experiences.