New Z-Man Baits for 2017

Glenn May: Hey, folks. Glenn May here with bassresource.com. I'm at the 2016 ICAST show. Here at the Z-Man booth with another Glenn from Z-Man looking at some of the new stuff that's come out. Z-Man's come out with 17 new products this year. We don't have time to go through all of those, but let's look at some of the big ones, the really cool stuff. What do you got for us, Glenn? 

Glenn: Well, everybody knows about the Ned Rig by now, and I think most people are using it whether they admit it or not. And it was just a huge, huge introduction for us last year, and it's gotten really popular. And what a lot of guys were afraid of was going down to something this small, though, and a little hesitant to do it and go down to a six-pound line. They wanted a larger profile, a larger hook, and kind of be able to do a more of a power finesse fishery, so we came out with the big TRD.

Glenn May: Big turd.

Glenn: Big turd. It's the big turd. And it's the four-inch version of the regular TRD. And to come out to match that, we brought out the power Finesse ShroomZ, which are a larger, heavier duty hook, same weights as the original Ned Rig system, though. So we have all the same matching weights because the technique is the same, but the guys wanted a larger profile, be able to go with larger line and get away with that, because that's a pretty thin wire hook on the original one and the guys wanted something a little bit bigger, kind of a more power approach.

Glenn May: Kind of a Bubba Ned.

Glenn: Absolutely total Bubba Ned, because let's face it a lot of guys who are in this market go down to 50 for finesse. This is to suit that guy that's a little hesitant to go down to the six or eight-pound line but wants that bigger profile. You can definitely do it with this. 

Glenn May: And bigger fish.

Glenn: A lot bigger.

Glenn May: Well, what else do we have?

Glenn: To keep along with the theme of finesse, one of the things we did for the Ned Rig system was we introduced a new tube called the TRD Tube. And what's really nice about this little tube, it has a solid nose, so that when you rig it on a Jighead it stays in place better. That's one thing that's important. Still hollow back here. But the other thing we did is all of these little tentacles are perfectly rounded, so that way they completely separate in the water. There's nothing to stick or grab to each other. They're all perfectly round tentacles, and of course, since it's ElaZtech nobody's going to peck those little tentacles off either. 

Glenn May: Perch, they drive me nuts.

Glenn: Exactly. And because of the buoyancy, this guy's going to stand straight up in the water like he's supposed to. So the other thing that matches along with this, along the finesse front, we came out with a new series of jigs called the ShroomZ Micro Finesse Jigs. So we're using that same Shroom-style head that we've had so much success with, added a really nice, light silicone skirt. It has a little trailer I keep around here too. This sets up perfectly to fish the TRD as a trailer. 

Glenn May: Nice. I like that idea.

Glenn: So you can rig the TRD and this fills out that profile, stands it straight up. And because it's nice and light, it's going to have that slow fall. We've got our dual wire weedguard right here. And one of the things unique about this it's not two strands. It's one strand bent into a V and then molded into the head so that it can't come out.

Glenn May: I like that. I've had so many break on me before that way.

Glenn: Yeah, this guy's going to be a lot more durable. And this is actually sold in a two pack, so instead of buying one pack, one jig at a time, it's actually sold two at a time. So you're getting a better deal, and it's retail of $4.99. You're getting two really good high-quality finesse jigs out of that. So really we kind of stuck with the finesse theme this year with a lot of these new products to kind of keep the momentum going we've had in that finesse fishery because it's been a phenomenal success for us. 

Glenn May: It's been great baits. I can tell you that. I've been using them for quite a while now, and the smallmouth, even the largemouth, just go crazy on these things. And you're like, "Why would they want to go after something like this?" But when I first saw this, I went, "Really?" I mean, honestly. But it makes sense because I'll be honest with you, I'll tell you a little quick story. Years ago, I was fishing grubs, and I kept getting the tails pulled off by the perch. And the bite was so good, I ran out of grubs, and alls I had were grub bodies left. And I figured, okay, what the heck, I'll just throw that out there. So here's what we call the "nubbin", throwing them out there. And we caught more fish that way than when they had the tails on the grubs. And so when I saw this, I went you know what, that kind of reminds me of my "nubbin", and sure enough, I don't know what it is about them, but man...

Glenn: Well, one of the reasons that it works so effectively is if you think about it this way when you look at that shape, there's no reason for them not to eat it. There's no appendages. There's no spines. There's no nothing on there to keep them from picking that up and eating it, and that's one of the reasons they pick it up so readily. There's no reason for them not to. It just simply looks like food. They pick it up and they eat it. 

Glenn May: Now you guys have more great baits. I can't wait to try them out. When does all this come available?

Glenn: Actually we're shipping all of these now.

Glenn May: No kidding.

Glenn: Yep. We released them all just in time for the ICAST show, so they're all available now. You can see them all at our website at zmanfishing.com. And if you need to know where to get them, you can just shoot us a quick email and we'll tell you where to go find them.

Glenn May: All right. Check them all out, guys. And along with 17 total new products, you got to check them all out.