Here's an odd thought... If you asked any bass fisherman what bass commonly feed on, bluegill would be on the list. Bluegill live in almost every bass lake in the state if not the country.

But as far as I know, there's not a single company that makes a bluegill scent. Does that seem weird to anyone? Maybe there's some reason I'm not aware of, but you'd think people could sell bluegill scent. I'd buy some to check it out if it existed.

Mabey just catch some and rub them on your lures? Another funny thing is notice of the scents I have used smell anything like what there supposed to anyone else notice this?

Well think about it, any fish or crustacean that is alive and kicking is going to smell one way. Any fish or crustacean that is dead is going to smell another way.

The next question is, do bass eat dead food? I think they do sometimes, but I don't think dead food is very commonly found. What I mean is ... the minute something in a lake starts dying - it gets eaten. A dead fish will float to the top or sink to the bottom. A dead crawdad will sink to the bottom. Things floating or laying still on the bottom stand out in an environment where everything alive is moving around. If there is a bass anywhere nearby, it's going to eat whatever it is that's dying before it's dead.

If a bass doesn't get it, something else probably will. And I really think that once something starts to rot, predators will not eat it any more. Vultures will pick at a dead fish that is rotting but I've seen rotten bluegill floating in lakes and they were left alone. I'm confident bass saw those bluegills, came up and looked/smelled them and decided to pass. It's probably instinctual for animals to avoid eating rotten food items unless they are equipped to (like vultures).

So does using scent that smells like dead fish or dead crawdad make sense? Is there a level of rottenness that is reached where the scent becomes a turn off? I don't know. And if you're going to try to bottle a fresh scent, how do you keep it fresh without refrigeration? I've never seen a refrigerated scent. Do scent mfgrs put preservatives in their scent? I'd imagine that they do. Do those preservatives affect the scent negatively?

As long as we're on the topic, does using scent that smells like anise or garlic or banana make any sense? Sure as hell doesn't make any sense to me. Bass don't eat fruits and vegetables last time I checked. It may smell pungent to us, but do bass care? Would a lion that ate only meat have any interest in a piece garlic just because it smelled strongly? I doubt it. This kind of thing seems purely psychological to me.

These days I put megastrike on my baits for lubrication purposes. It doesn't give off any strong smell and I figure that's ok. If it smells passingly like some fish product, that's enough for me. I'll spray bang on baits for a similar reason, it lubricates and it doesn't smell out of the ordinary. I've sniffed a few crawdads in my day and never noticed that they give off a particular smell other than moss or mud smell. They certainly don't smell like garlic!

I also believe in the power of salt. Fish have a certain amount of salt in their bodies, I'm sure most living creatures do and I think that predators react favorably to salt. Ever notice that a cat or dog will lick your arm if you've been sweating? Deer like salt to, hence salt licks are used to attract them. If a bass bites a plastic lure and tastes salt, that's a plus in my book.

Here's an interesting observation. Friend of mine had a tank with a bass in it. The bass was about 12 inches. There were a few giant crawdads in the tank that were probably 6 or 7" total length. The bass never messed with those crawdads until they molted. As soon as they started to molt, the bass would attack them and get them in it's mouth. He'd swim around for hours with the crawdad in his mouth even though it was too big to eat. Something in the molting of the crawdad triggered that bass. It instincutally knew that the crawdad was vulnerable. Who knows if it was a smell or a what. Maybe the bass could visually identify the change in color in the crawdad as it molted. Who knows. But that bass killed all the big crawdads one at a time when they molted. Put the smell of a molting crawdad in a bottle, I'll buy it.

Rob,
I have read several times that the smell of dead fish repells fish! I belive it is true because you never really hear of anyone fishing for catfish catching bass, at least I dont. I have seen turtles and birds eat dead fish that float up and I am pretty sure that the catfish get the ones that sink.

Taylor

Hey let that Bass go I wanna catch her some day
http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/v/members/tmcustoms/

Couple comments...

Bluegill scent... yes! Bluegills are the smelliest fish ever in freshwater. Bluegill scent sounds good.

Dead fish smell... I have often had the impression of having "good bottles" and "bad bottles" of scent, with several manufacturers. I don't know if it's real or imagined, though. With my last two bottles of Hot Sauce, the firest one seemed much more productive, but it had obviously sat on the store shelf for years. The brand new looking bottle doesn't seem to work anywhere near as well. If it's a real problem, it must be happening when the scent is being manufactured. With both Bang and Hot Sauce there's not much chance for fresh air to mix with the scent once you open it for the first time, starting the decomposition process.

Garlic, anise... anise scented Bang (isn't all Bang anise scented?) works really well for me. Maybe if they removed the anise it would work even better. However, bass do like to bite things that are new to them. Show bass a new lure that looks somewhat alive and they'll be all over it, even if it doesn't look or act exactly like a fish (see senko). It could be the same thing with vegetable scents. It's new to them, it smells kind of nice, they feel compelled to investigate.

back in the day when Oso was still a decent fishery, I used to go out at night and flyline frozen mac for cats while casting for bass- for whatever reason, the bass in that lake loved the frozen mac- go figure- the shad were on the decline and the bass were starting to compete pretty hard for food, I'm sure that had something to do with it- but at the same time, the channel cats in that lake would whack artificials constantly, (blades, cranks, even buzzbaits a couple of times) most of them 6-8 pound fish. My guess is that they were all adapting to eat whatever was available, as the food they were used to eating was on the decline.

Why dont you guys make your own bluegill scent? Catch some gills , scrape off thier slime and scales and mix it in petrolium jelly. Keep it frigerated when not in use. I bet it works. I am planning on doing this and I will let you know how it works. You could also add salt to petrolium jelly.
Matt

www.mattlures.com

I think we fisherman put way to much emphasis on attractants to catch bass. Predators like bass don't swim around smelling for prey. The sense of smell/taste although very acute is low on the list of senses used in a feeding bass. Sight, hearing, feeling and electroreception are the main factors in determing attack on prey. Smell/taste is of most importance only after bass attack the prey/lure. And this is only important on slow moving lures like worms, jigs and some swimbaits. Bass do hold on to prey/lures with smells they are accustom to and reject lures they are not accustom. So any natural scents like shad, minnow, crawfish ect. would be logical choices, but the use of scents is much more important as a masking agent than an attractant. You will catch more fish by reducing negative factors like gasoline, sunscreen, insect replellent, fragrance and nicotine from your hands than the use of scents on lures. You will catch just as many fish by applying scent to your hands as applying scent to your lures.

We know bass have a very acute taste and smell, but we don't know how they interpert taste and smell. What does anise taste/smell like to a bass? Is ther something they eat naturaly that has the taste? Most bait-fish, crawdads ect. have a very high salt content, so that easily explains why bass eat salted plastic worms, ect., they are accustomed to it. Vegetables? Bass are surronded by aquatic weeds, trees, moss ect., so they are accustomed to those smells. As fingerlings they eat aquatic insects that live among and eat aquatic vegetation. You can assume aquatic insects taste like vegetation they eat. And perhaps bass just become accustomed to the taste of banana flavored worms, after they tasted a hundred of them.

Yes, all predators are opportunistic feeders, preying on whatever is most available, but Catfish are very efficient predators also, they readily seek out the same live prey as bass. I've caught many catfish on lures, including plastic worms. The reason we don't catch more catfish on lures is that they are more active at night. I use to do a lot of catfishing with live and cut-bait. I've caught many large channels and blues on live shad and big flatheads on bluegill, including several c&r line-class world records, all at night.

Matt,

Are you single by any chance? :D I can just picture the conversation, "hey honey what was that goo in the fridge that smells like it just died? I threw it away while you were gone"... lol

Nico and I like to joke about putting scents on lures that don't look like what the scent is - like spraying crawdad bang on swimbaits, or putting a shad scent on a jig. Like do the fish get confused by that? Does it really matter? Too bad we can't talk to the fish.