Glenn: Hey folks, Glenn May here at BassResource.com. I'm here with Stetson Blaylock and with Danny...
Danny: Thompson.
Glenn: Thompson. I'm so sorry. I keep forgetting your name. With Garmin here. Looking at the brand new Force Trolling Motor that's just debuted here at ICAST right here in Florida. Stetson, do you we want to tell us a little bit about this? This is a pretty cool thing.
Stetson: Yeah. For me as an avid tournament fisherman, we need stealth, we need fast, we need quiet, we need strong. And Garmin knocked it out of the park with this. I mean, there's a lot of features on this trolling motor that is way over my head, but I know the things that I need, they got it. And for me, that's the most important.
Glenn: Super Powerful?
Stetson: It is. This thing, I had it up to almost five miles an hour a while ago, which is...five miles an hour is considered no wake. So it's almost too fast for a no-wake zone, which is crazy to me. But being able to keep it quiet with the brushless motor, to me is a huge feature. When you're trying to slip in and out of places that are super shallow and just be stealthy, you've got to have that. And man, it's awesome to know what we're going to get to run and get to just be that much further ahead of the competition.
Glenn: I can hear it moving behind me right now. We're on spotlock or what do we call it?
Danny: Anchor lock.
Glenn: Anchor lock. We call it anchor lock. Danny's the tech head here. He's going to keep me straight here and make sure I call it right. Anchor lock holds us right here in place all by itself. And it can do that what? In wind and current, all kinds of different situations and keep you right on that spot while you're fishing. How important is that when you're out there fishing in a tournament?
Stetson: Well, for me it's very critical when you catch a fish or when you're trying to retie or reorganize your stuff, not to drift off of your spot and be able to stay there and stay within feet of where you want to be and not worry about what your boat's doing. It just eliminates one less thing to think about and just makes your job that much easier.
Glenn: Danny, there's a lot of features on this. It's almost overwhelming. Can you take me through, kind of, a logical sequence of some of this stuff to help everybody, help our viewers understand like what are the different features available on this?
Danny: Yeah. You know, kind of the cool thing, you know, and some of the basic things that really, kind of, set it apart from what's been out there is, like, he touched on the brushless motor. It's extremely efficient, you know, with 30% more powerful than the closest competition's most powerful unit. So we're more powerful or more efficient because of that brushless motor. The other thing, we were looking at the sonar earlier and the sonar noise is going to be next to none with this type of motor. So you're just going to get a lot cleaner screen when these guys are trying to pick out fish and that stuff on their screens, they're going to be able to see it a lot clearer with this type of motor system.
Glenn: Speaking of sonar, it comes with...like, how many different transducers are built into this?
Danny: Yeah. So it has what's called our GT54 transducer. And that transducer is an all-in-one that does side imaging, down imaging, and 2D sonar. But it does our ultrahigh definition side and down imaging. So you have...
Glenn: It's CHIRP.
Danny: Yeah, and it's CHIRP. It's literally one of the best transducers we have out there right now. And it's built right into the motor. It comes with it.
Glenn: Sweet. Nice. Nice. So, you know, there's so many things. Let's talk about the wireless foot pedal. So explain to me a little bit how that works.
Danny: Yeah, so the cool thing we did with our wireless pedal is...I think someone's had a wireless system before, but what this one does is it similar to, like, a cable. So, you know, like, if he's fighting a fish and he's turning to the right, but he takes his foot off the pedal to fight that fish and he puts his foot back, he doesn't want to look at the head of the motor to see where he's at with the trolling motor. If he puts his foot on that pedal, it stays, you know, with the toe down and he knows right where he's at. So it just makes it, you know, a lot more efficient for that fisherman and just, you know, you can be on the pedal and you're not making a turn the wrong way or anything like that. So having a wireless pedal that does that is incredible. You know, and AA batteries that last almost a year, you know, for the average fisherman will be great.
Glenn: Can you wire that into...if you don't want it run with batteries?
Danny: Yeah. So you can wire it in. So a guy like him, I mean, he's on the water a lot. He's probably going to want to wire it in and it just uses...you know, you can buy the power cable for it. And, you know, like I said if you were in a situation, your batteries died, you could take your chart plotter power cord and plug it right into there and use that as well.
Glenn: That's a sweet little feature. I like that. So, what else can you tell me about this strong model?
Danny: You know, the cool thing there is a remote that does a lot of cool features too. You know, a lot of the Bass guys might not be using the remote, but we have, you know, gesture mode. So if I take it out of anchor and if I turn this, it's going to turn the head of the trolling motor. So it's got some cool features built into it like that. A lot of these guys might, you know, say we stopped right here. We caught a fish and we broke off, but we want to get back over there to that bank. We can take the remote pointed over there and it's going to drive us over there. We can sit down and retire while the motor's driving us over to where we just pointed this to.
Glenn: Automatically?
Danny: Automatically.
Glenn: I like that. It's kind of like a Tesla for a trolling motor.
Danny: Exactly.
Glenn: Auto drive.
Danny: Auto drive. Yup.
Glenn: And does this float?
Danny: And this floats. Yeah. So if you did happen to drop it in the lake, it'll float up for you.
Glenn: Very cool. Will you be using this a lot?
Stetson: You know, the remote, for me, it's a cool feature when I have my kids in the boat and I'm wanting to let them fish and not be in the way, I can sit there in the seat and drive the trolling motor, do everything I need to do. I can even see my graphs and be able to switch back and forth and see different screens with the remote. So it's a feature that I'm going to keep in the boat. And when I have people in the boat that are not as familiar with running a trolling motor and fishing, I can do all that while they fish. So yeah, it's definitely going to be something that I'll use.
Glenn: Nice. Sweet, sweet. And, you know, now you mentioned multi-species. Does this come in different shaft links?
Danny: Yeah, so actually, we offered in a 52-inch and a 57-inch shaft. You know, I run a Walleye boat, obviously being from the north. And I'm running the 57-inch shaft on that boat and I mean, it stays in the water even when I get in those two and three-foot waves, so.
Glenn: Nice. When is this gonna be available?
Danny: So we're going to have it available this fall. You could expect to see it in retailers, you know, by October for sure.
Glenn: Sweet. And I was going to ask, what's the cost, what's it going to be?
Danny: Yeah, so we're at $3,100 for the shorter shaft and we're at $3,200 for that 57-inch shaft.
Glenn: So all those whizbang features don't come for free.
Danny: Yeah.
Glenn: Perfect. Well, thanks for showing it to us, guys. I appreciate it. You, this is your first glimpse. You get to look at it. Check it out when it is available in just a few months.
Danny: Yup.
Glenn: All right. Thanks.
