Z-Man® Fishing pro Seth Feider reveals finesse Llama TubeZ™ system
You can catch llamas. That’s a nice llama. You can go llamaing. Llama on. You can throw it anywhere in a sentence. That’s the gist of it. There’s no wrong place to put it.”
– Seth Feider (via bassmaster.com), explaining Llama logic
Ladson, SC (July 3, 2025) – When Seth Feider talks bronze bass, everyone interested in hooking more smallmouths drops what they’re doing and tunes in to the language of the Llama. But when the dude with the lip strip and the spicy blonde mullet breaks out his newest “secret agent bait,” 5-pound smalljaws come to play for keeps.
Feider (a.k.a. The Llama) recalls a recent stand-out bass bite, and a key discovery that turned the tide. “I’d been on Green Bay for a few days, and after getting bit pretty good on your typical 5-inch tubes, the bass just shut off,” notes the popular Z-Man pro and Bassmaster Elite Series star. “The bigger fish ignored all the standard stuff, but when I eventually tied on a little crappie-sized tube, every cruising bass I saw swam right over and ate it. First phone call I made was to Jose at Z-Man, begging him to create a finesse ElaZtech® tube and a matching jighead.”
When prototype Llama TubeZ™ and Llama TubeZ™ jigheads finally arrived on Feider’s front porch, the baits went right to work. His next trip to the Great Lakes proved the new tube legit, countless football bass coming to the boat with a Llama TubeZ way down the hatch.
“Do we really need another tube bait?” Feider asks, rhetorically. “Nah. Not really. Plenty of cookie cutter 4- and 5-inch tubes out there already. But a micro tube? Made from buoyant, bulletproof ElaZtech®? That’s a different animal. And it this point, this little bait has 100-percent become my go-to bait for big smallmouths— Great Lakes or any other tough-bite scenario you can imagine.”
Freshly juiced with Z-Man’s ElaZtech® superplastic, the new 2-inch Llama TubeZ™ (and Llama TubeZ™ Jighead) is already activating those selective bass Feider calls “cruisers”; the tube is also scoring suspended bass ‘scoped with forward-facing sonar.
Unlike traditional tubes that tear apart after a handful of bites, Feider praises the Llama TubeZ’ 10X Tough ElaZtech composition, which keeps the same bait on the jighook for hours of bass action. The tiny tube’s cutting-edge material is naturally buoyant, too, for a critter-like tail-up posture on bottom and leisurely spiraling action on the drop—giving bass an extended opportunity to examine and eat. To stimulate extended bite retention, Llama TubeZ are salt impregnated.
Rather than replicating the synthetic pencil shape of traditional tube baits, Feider suggested a slightly fatter midsection to give the Llama TubeZ distinctive curves that better match the anatomy of aquatic animals. The bait is noticeably softer than most tubes, too, offering a naturally squishy, sculpin/goby-like texture smallmouths love to chew.
To boost the bait’s multi-level action, Feider asked for elongated 1.25-inch tentacles which quiver freely and lively, thanks to the buoyant material.
“The longer tentacles are key to creating the right spiraling action on the fall, which is aided by ElaZtech’s natural flotation, giving the bait a more relaxed drop, so bass have time to inspect and react,” explains the Llama, whose codename has become a battle cry for his cult of thousands. “Given its natural ‘critter’ silhouette, compact size and spiraling, darting action, they almost never reject it.
“It’s just a superior bait in super clear water for finicky smallmouths, the tweaky ones. Especially in spring, the 2-inch Llama TubeZ perfectly matches young-of-the-year forage pursued by bass. But anytime the bite gets tough, the little bait presents fish with a nearly fishing-pressure proof offering.
“Stuff like gobies, darters, sculpin and crayfish . . . these little critters operate by blending into the bottom, scooting from rock to rock,” Feider explains. “The deal with this little tube is to match the bottom, not give bass a good look at the bait, which ironically, provokes big smallmouths to eat it even more.
“On the freefall, this little tube glides and spirals perfectly—the exact action that fires smallmouths up,” he adds. “On bottom, the bait creeps and quivers among the rocks, nonstop. But because it’s ElaZtech, the tube slips right through the sharp terrain without ripping, and catches dozes of fish per bait, so I rarely need to stop fishing to re-rig.
“A lot of us on tour have dreamed about a super soft, buoyant, crazy durable finesse tube made from ElaZtech for a long time. Once I got my hands on ‘em this season, everywhere I’ve encountered big smallmouths— gin-clear and hardcore pressured water, particularly in the Great Lakes— this tasty little tube has cracked the code. Fish it beside a traditional 4- or 5-inch tube—or any finesse bait— and find out for yourself.”
Created to match the new 2-inch Z-Man Llama TubeZ, the teardrop-shaped Llama TubeZ Jighead features a vanadium steel VMC® 1/0 RedLine Series® hook, chosen by Feider for its stay-sharp talents around rocks and other hardcover. The Llama TubeZ Jighead is available in 1/16-, 1/8-, 3/16- and 1/4-ounce sizes, with weights imprinted on the jighead for easy ID (MSRP $4.99 per 3-pack). New Llama TubeZ are offered in 8 pro selected color patterns (MSRP $5.99 per 6-pack)—both products made in the USA.
About Z-Man Fishing Products: A dynamic Charleston, South Carolina based company, Z-Man Fishing Products has melded leading edge fishing tackle with technology for nearly three decades. Creator of the Original ChatterBait®, Z-Man is also the renowned innovators of 10X Tough ElaZtech® superplastics, among the most coveted baits in fresh- and saltwater. Z-Man is one of the fastest-growing lure brands worldwide.
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