MotorGuide Tour Pro Trolling Motor Review | Video

Glenn: Hey, folks. Glenn May here with Bassresource.com. I'm here with Mike McClelland. Well, I can't say that anymore now. Your major league...

Mike: Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour.

Glenn: I'm so used to saying that. I almost said that. We are out on the famous Lake X here in Florida with MotorGuide with the brand new troller motor that they're releasing. Mike, you want to tell us a little bit about this?

Mike: You know, the really cool thing about what's gone on and, you know, I've been with MotorGuide, basically, my whole career. And, you know, to go from the tour days to the X5 days and then see what MotorGuide has done with the Tour and the Tour Pro is pretty unbelievable. I actually had the opportunity to test just the Tour last fall. Put it through the mill. I mean, you know, it's one of those situations where we want to make sure it is America's toughest trolling motor.

I mean, that's what MotorGuide has always hung their hat on. One of those situations that we want to make sure we've got the toughest motor on the market. The Tour Pro did phenomenal.

Now, this is one of my first experiences with the new Pinpoint GPS Tour Pro. Technology just continues to go on and on. And years and years ago, I actually played with the Pinpoint technology. I ran Pinpoint motors back in the early days and MotorGuide has owned that technology and we've brought it now to the Tour Pro GPS motor. So it's one of those situations where we have the most accurate GPS in our anchor system that any of the motors are going to have on the market. As far as the reliability, the durability of the motor, it's all there.

And, I mean, if we can go through the motor, when you look at it, I mean, we've, of course, got it deployed right now. One of the coolest things, in my opinion, is the ease of the zero gravity lift assist is unbelievable. And when I say that, it just takes no effort at all to stow this motor. I mean, you can see how light it is. It's one of those situations where, you know, for years, that's been a battle for a lot of us. But with the gas shock in this motor, the lift assist is unbelievable. And then when you actually deploy the motor, it goes in so easy too. You can just let the motor go and it doesn't clunk like, you know, so many of the motors that we've had to fight on the way down. So there's a lot of great things about the new MotorGuide Tour Pro.

Glenn: And I see it uses out an actual latch to put in place, not a pin like I've seen in other trolling motors. Now, that's by design. That's actually going to last longer?

Mike: It definitely is. And essentially, the way those latches work, the more you run the motor, the deeper they dig, the tighter it gets. But if you ever get in that situation where you do break a cable on the water like we've all done, the design of this allows you to still stow that motor without the cable and that is really trick. So you just come down here to the motor, reach down, grab these two pins and lift from right there.

Glenn: Look at that.

Mike: So, it's one of those situations that even if you break a cable, you can still fish the rest of the day. You don't have to disassemble the motor to get it back into stow position. And then to deploy it, you can just reach down and grab the same latch, release it with your hand, and you're ready to deploy the motor.

Glenn: But the cable on that though, that's actually like a stainless steel cable now, isn't it?

Mike: Well, the thing that's unique about the MotorGuide motor, the Tour Pro has cable steering as well as electric steering. So you're still able if...

Glenn: No, I was talking about the actual handle.

Mike: Oh yeah, the actual handle.

Glenn: Yeah.

Mike: You've got a metal cable, metal handle. So, you know, everything there is solid. You don't have to worry about anything coming undone there.

But what I was talking about, you know, when we talk about the foot pedal of the motor. You know, MotorGuide was always known for that metal foot pedal. We have a metal foot pedal again. You know, the stability when you're running that motor is a big, big thing to a lot of anglers, tournament anglers as well as weekend anglers. So one of those situations that I feel like with the metal pedal, the cables steering, to me, is one of the biggest benefits of this motor.

If for some reason something goes out with that electric steer, my day's not shot. I can still operate this motor just like a standard trolling motor with a cable steer. So regardless of what happens or could happen, there's always a backup in this motor. And, again, that's the reason, to me, the Tour Pro is America's toughest trolling motor.

Glenn: This is an unusual looking head compared to what we're used to seeing. What's up with that?

Mike: You know, that's the biggest thing I think everyone has to get used to. With the electric steer motors, there are many more working parts in there. You've got to have this big head to house all of the motor, the steering, the transmission. Some of the other motors have the transmission down here, which doesn't allow them to go to the full breakaway mount. We have the full 360 breakaway mount by moving the transmission up here in the head.

And it's just one of those situations we're all going to have to get accustomed to getting used to looking at. Every time I'd walk out to my boat it'd be like, "Man, that just doesn't look right." But the more I ran it, the more accustomed I came to looking at it...

Glenn: But did you have to make any adjustments to your boat cover to make that fit?

Mike: No, absolutely not. And that's one of the beauties of the way that MotorGuide has designed this whole motor is to get it lower to the deck than any of the other competition. We sit so low to the deck that as far as your covers if you put this new motor on an existing boat with an existing cover, it's going to mount up just right.

Glenn: Perfect. Now, what about battery usage? Everybody wants to know like longevity on the water and how much battery it uses. How does that compare to previous models?

Mike: You know, one thing about it, one of the biggest things we've got there is with the new MotorGuide Katana Prop, we are the most efficient prop that has ever been designed. I mean, this is not going to be an issue. You know, the prop, the motor itself is more efficient. Battery life should get better. We're all running more and more electronics today. And the battery usage on a crank battery is way more, I guess, stressful than what we're doing to our trolling motor batteries, especially when you go to a 36-volt model.

Glenn: Right. And now tell me about the shaft lengths here. What's it going to be available in? What different lengths?

Mike: Essentially, to start with, we've got the 45-inch shaft, which is a true 45 from the bottom of the head to the top of the motor. So, you know, you still got the same shaft length that you would have had with a traditional motor. You've got an outer column with an inner shaft, which is fiberglass, so you don't have to worry about a shaft breakage. I mean, the fiberglass is super, super tough and strong there. And then we're going to come with a longer model that will be more equipped for the up north boats, the walleye boats, the deeper V boats, things of that nature.

So super excited that the Tour Pro is going to be available, you know, around the first of the year. The Tour is being released here at ICAST, so couldn't be happier.

Glenn: Nice. Great. Well, thank you, Mike, for taking us through this. This is pretty exciting. I can't wait to get this out on the water and give it a try.

Mike: I'm ready to get one on my boat and go at it too.