what is a good fishing smell to put on bait or lures?

[johnson1942]

i know WD 40 works well to catch fish but what else? spring is coming and thats when i fish the most for crappies and what ever is running. let me know your secrets?

[JWFilips]

I have heard of Anise oil
Really don't have much faith in any of this smell thing but they say it works
Jim

[GhostHawk]

Ever read a can of WD-40?

"Contains Petroleum Distillates" Yeah, like what you put in your car to run it, gasoline, naptha, benzene, all that good stuff.

Yeah lets put that on our hooks and introduce more of that stuff into the waters and the fish I eat. Sounds good.

Sigh, sorry, pet peeve of mine. THINK first. Read the label.

There are many attractants, but nothing for crappies as good as a live wiggling minnow. Has the right shape, smell and everything.

[maxreloader]

The orange "Smelly Jelly" (I think it's crawdad but not positive) works pretty darn good... on Bluefish and Stripers. Never tried it in fresh water...

[shredder]

There was a series of tests done on a fishing show I watched and the clear winners were powdered garlic and salt. I would make a mixture of table salt and powdered garlic and rub that on a wet plastic bait. They used a type of plastic worm that had rings or ridges all over it and they held the stuff best.

[Powder Burn]

I haven't used minnows for crappie in years. I use either Trigger X - 2" minnow or Gulp 1-2" minnow. In the spring I can't keep the Northern off of them. You can use slip bobber or just throw out and reel back slowly. Wife usually catches more than me.

I pour my own jig heads and use 1/32-1/16 oz head. No super duper smellen's for me. Although I should add, 'Chompers' crawdad is the best soft bait I've ever used for smallmouth or largemouth bass.

[M-Tecs]

There was a series of tests done on a fishing show I watched and the clear winners were powdered garlic and salt. I would make a mixture of table salt and powdered garlic and rub that on a wet plastic bait. They used a type of plastic worm that had rings or ridges all over it and they held the stuff best.

I will have to give that a try.

[Blackwater]

You ask a really good question, Johnson. I've experimented with many scents, and some of them genuinely seemed to work, and improve my catch and bite ratio, especially with the big ones. For bass, Berkeley used to make a scent in a green bottle (forget the name) that seemed to make a significant difference, at least sometimes, and especially in still water where the fish have more time to examine a bait. Can't recall the name, but it doesn't matter because this was back in the early days of pheromone development. I've used a number of scents since then, and any "natural" scent (shad oil, crawfish oil, etc.) seems to help, particularly with the big ones. But I've quit worrying about it, really. The difference never really impressed me when the price of the goo was taken into consideration.

The same type of things are made for crappie, and other species. I have nothing against them at all, but don't use them much any more.

Then, after the pheromone based stuff, you have what I usually just call "flavors" like anise. I use them a lot. I've accumulated a pretty big bag of plastic worms, craws and lizards, etc. through the years, and once a year, I open each pack and drop a few small drops of whatever vegetable oil my wife has on the shelf, and mix in a little anise or some smelt oil I got from a friend. It's mostly just to keep them from drying out, and keeps them soft and "smelly." Mostly, I think of these as "cover scents," just like you'd use fox pee in covering your scent while deer hunting. I think the oil helps more than the scnets when using soft plastics. But that's just one man's opinion.

If I were a pro bass fisherman, I'd use all the scents and try them all to see which worked best for me, and use those $1/ea. hooks, and have a 21' bass boat with a 250 hp. motor, and all the other trimmings for that pursuit, but I find it more satisfying to just do it the old fashioned way these days, and only use (mostly) my own veg. oil/anise concoction.

Tests HAVE shown that some folks have more of a certain chemical in our fingerprints that fish find repulsive. Good tests have proven that the folks with the least amount of this chemical almost always catch more fish. So I've concluded, for my own purposes, that a cover scent is worth while, but the pheromones just don't add enough to my fishing to be really worth their cost now. I have no quarrel with anyone who thinks differently. It's just the choice I've made on the basis of my own peculiar experience on the water. This isn't a lot of help, but maybe it puts it in perspective a bit? Wish I could help more.

[johnson1942]

thanks all of you and ive come down to this after a lot of internet reading and this is it. im going to buy a small bottle of cod liver oil and put galric powder and koser salt and anise oil into it. mix it good and soak some small crappie lures in it plus chick livers or gizzards. the ice will come off a little sand hill lake with a lot of good fish in it in a month. im going over there and try it out and see what happens. probably rub a lot of this into my hands as blackwater suggested before i touch one of my baits. this little lake is really two small sand hill lakes and where one drains into the other in the spring the crappies hang out there in the hundreds as well as bass and pike. will go in the other direction also to a state park lake that has a lot of rainbows in it and try that lake for the same. it is fort robinson where crazy horse was killed and is in a very beautiful location. the state bought it from the feds and the water is clean there as it comes right out of the ground three miles back and turns into soldier creek which fills the lake. i really like 6 inch trout as they pan fry the best. just gut them and and slow fry in olive oil and a little salt. thanks again guys.

[davidheart]

We always used raw chicken livers for catfish. Never thought of anything else for bass but the garlic sounds like an interesting idea!

[HP9MM]

Dale's Marinate, it makes everything better.

[GhostHawk]

Wife and I took our new (to us) boat out today. 16' Alumacraft deep hull, 20 hp Merc, 44 lb thrust stern mount trolling motor.

Top bait of the morning was 1" Chartreuse gulp minnows on a small jig 3-4 feet below a bobber. Anchored on the edge of the visible weeds 8 to 12' of water. Within an hour we'd found the bait, and the system. I started breaking each minnow in 3 pieces.

Action was fast and furious. Caught enough decent sized gills for lunch and 2 meals in the freezer.

Sunshine, light breeze, temps near 70. Perfect day that went flawless. Boat unloaded and loaded like a dream on the trailer.

5 hours on the water, an hour putting it away in the garage and cleaning fish. Ate fish, took a shower and slept for 3 hours.

When I woke up I ordered more gulp from Amazon. Keeps forever, does not need refrigeration. And those gills bite like crazy when it is fresh.

Also going to try some of the 1" gulp emerald shiners. Suspect they might work on crappies.

[Tom W.]

A product called "Fish Formula" works well if you can still find it. I also went to Mann's Bait company and bought some of the stuff that he used to put on his Jelly Worms. Basically it was something to keep the human scent off of the lure.

[Elroy]

When I was young we fished a lot,and we would use chicken liver, but could never get it to stay on the hook very well.I don't think we ever tried beef liver,but it would stay on the hook better.I remember trying to cast chicken liver,and usually hearing "the plop",and knowing I just lost my bait..We have used dead minnows,and had good luck as well.When we would set brush hooks for the big cats we would hook sunfish,or chubs thru the back.

[415m3]

Taco Bell hot sauce works for me pretty well. I soak small swimbaits or grubs in a ziploc baggies.

[Hogdaddy]

When I was young we fished a lot,and we would use chicken liver, but could never get it to stay on the hook very well.I don't think we ever tried beef liver,but it would stay on the hook better.I remember trying to cast chicken liver,and usually hearing "the plop",and knowing I just lost my bait..We have used dead minnows,and had good luck as well.When we would set brush hooks for the big cats we would hook sunfish,or chubs thru the back.

We would wrap livers in panty hose. they stay on hook well while casting ; )
H/D

[OldBearHair]

My dad was a fisherman that caught loads of fish. My uncle Don, his brother complained that anyone could catch fish if they kept their hook in the water all the time. My dad fished with his hands in the water until they were wrinkled skin. Claimed the fish couldn't smell him anymore. I 've heard that the reason for the garlic is that it covered the human scent whether it was on the bait or on your hands. What Blackwater said about some people have more repulsive smell in their fingerprints than others really would explain why some people are catching fish and everyone else around are just watching the person catch them and trying to imitate exactly what he is doing to catch the fish. I like to keep a bar of home made unscented lye soap in the tackle box and use it. I also sit around and wonder about all the scents that are available and about how well they work. Have tried some and can't tell which is best.

[RED BEAR]

You might try skipping the shower for a while and try some good old fashioned stank.

[Beagle333]

I've always had good luck with anything rubber bodied (plastic worms, jigs, spinners) and Anise oil. I do think it made a difference on things that were fished slowly, giving the fish a chance to follow it and catch the "scent".

[OldBearHair]

I would like to know just how far back into history the Anise has been used to lure animals and fish. My grandfather taught my dad how to use it back then. Dad was born 1899. Grandfather a generation before that and I have the barrel, the lock, and bullet mold from his muzzleloader and some fond memories such as when Dad told me, " your grandfather could skin another squirrel every minute of the clock".