Member of the Kick'n BassŪ Pro-Staff
Making Sense Of Scents
Keith Nighswonger's
Western Fishing Network
No part of this article may be reproduced without permission of
Keith Nighswonger
www.probassanglers.com
The use of fish attractants has always been a topic that can easily leave and angler
confused. The word "attractant" can also be misleading, causing the notion that
fish may actually come from miles around because they can smell your lure. Besides fish
"attractants" are messy and will cause stains in expensive bass boat carpet, so
many anglers simply ignore them. When the smoke finally clears, the weary angler is left
with a rather obvious question: Do fish attractants or scents really make that much of a
difference in whether or not I catch fish? If they do, most anglers will spare any expense
or endure any mess, however if they have no effect, the $8.00 you spend for most products
could easily be invested in another crank bait or something else we need.
I try not to view these products as "attractants." When an angler does this, he
or she conjures up images of fish actually coming from a long distance to the lure. The
attractant may trigger bites in fish, however only in those last crucial seconds when a
bass is "nose down" and deciding whether or not to strike. In my mind, the word
scent is much more correct because that is what these products are. They mask human odors,
as well as non human odors such as nicotine, sun block or coffee and they provide a
"taste" that the bass is to judge as being real.
Bass scents should be a portion of your lure presentation. Just as you would only use good
line, good hooks, good rods and reels and good baits. A scent is one more factor that you
can use to give yourself an advantage. During the course of a day's fishing, the more
advantages we create for ourselves, the better our odds of catching a bass.
I use bass scents when ever I am fishing plastic lures or jigs. Having done many bass tank
presentations, I am always "shocked" at how fast a bass can suck in and spit out
a lure, I mean its just not fair! Having this experience in my memory bank, I have
resolved to do everything I can to hook that fish when it does bite. This means using a
longer rod for better hook setting leverage, a fast 6:3.1 geared reel for quick reeling on
hook sets and the use of bass scents because when the bass does bite, and gets a taste of
something that seems reel, that bass will hesitate before spitting the bait out. That
hesitation of a split second can be the break I need in getting the hook set.
I like to use scents that have a strong garlic odor/taste to them. I don't know that
anything in the bass' world tastes like garlic, but I do know that it does have an extreme
taste to it, and I want to overpower that bass' senses so it holds on a little longer. You
need to do your own experiments, you use a scent and have your partner use another. This
is how you will begin to make sense out of scents.
Member of the Kick'n BassŪ Pro-Staff