Do
"Scents" Really Make Sense?
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The answer to the first question about formulas (or attractants) of being
an importance to an angler is a bit more than one would seem just a simple yes or no answer. First, we'll try to clarify a "myth" about formulas (or attractants.) One thing to keep in mind is that there is no such thing as a "Fish Attractant!" except when it comes to "chumming the water, usually done while salt water fishing."Fish Attractants do not attract anything except for the angler who buys them off of the self or orders them from their favorite bait and tackle outlet, and a "Fish Formula" is no more than a "cover-up" for an unwanted taste that had probably contaminated your bait from something you may have had on your hands or what ever the bait was kept in (the old musty smell?)
A fish formula is much like when the deer hunter puts scents on his clothes to "cover-up" his human scent so the deer won't smell him walking through the woods. The same principalgoes for the formulas that are made to use for fishing, they're simply just a "Cover-up!" but they're still needed because if a fish accepts the taste of a scent (or flavor) it will hold on to it a few moments longer than if the fish didn't like the taste, in which it would spit it right out in a split second (if it bites the bait at all.)
Let's say for example that you were going to go fishing one day and on the way to the boat launch you stopped to gas up your boat. While you were putting gas into your boat you spilled some gas on your hands and didn't have a place to wash them after you paid for the gas. Next, you put your boat into the water and go to your favorite spot. When you get to your fishing hole you grab your rod and reel, pick up your plastic worm (just for a bait example) and put it on your hook and cast it into the water.
When you do all that you find yourself just sitting and waiting for quite some time but you can't figure out why the fish aren't biting the bait, especially when you know that there are fish in the area (why?) or the fish just short-strike the bait and let go (could this be a cause for the short-strikes?)
Probably the biggest reason for this to happen is because you have contaminated the plastic worm (or whatever bait you may be using) with the scent of the gas on your hands from putting the gas in your boat on the way to the ramp. You see, a bass (and many other species of fish) can scent approximately 1/200th of a drop of a substance in 100 gallons of water. Now if their sense of taste and smell are that acute, they can surly taste the gas that rubbed off of your hands and got on the bait you cast into the water or any other foreign scent or residue that may have been on your hands such as sun lotion, ingredients from something you may have ate, a after shave lotion (or perfume hopefully used by female anglers), rust, must, mold, or just about anything you can imagine.
Next page > Part 3 - Which one? > Page 1, 2, 3, 4
