Making Sense of Scents

Personally I am one of those long time bass anglers who has had a love-hate relationship with the plethora of gooey, slimy concoctions we add to baits ... bait scents. 

Thinking way back to the first introductions of scents like Fish Formula and the oil-slick like trail they left when hitting the water after first application not to mention an oily slime on everything it touched.

Combine the oily mess with the fact I was never really sure it worked, more often than not I couldn't be bothered adding scents to baits. If a bait happened to be doused in scent when it was manufactured, fine but the decade-old bottle of oil-based craw scent occupying space in one of my less used tackle bags is evidence of my attitude toward regular use.

Now as far as purposely buying packages of pre-scented soft baits, the only company's baits I buy are those from Berkley lures with their water-based additives in the PowerBait/MaxScent lines. After reading some of the background research info and trying the baits on numerous occasions, I found there were times when the bite was off and the PowerBait scented baits appeared to help catch more fish. Add in the fact the baits were manufactured with the scent "baked-in" so I didn't have to mess with adding it myself all the better, especially since it has kind of a funky smell.

Earlier this year, American Baitworks (company behind Snag-proof & Scum frogs, Net Baits, Halo Rods, etc.) introduced a new, water-based, NON smelly scent called BaitFuel that is rapidly gaining popularity in the bass angling community. 

Even scent naysayer, Mikey Balzz seems impressed with BaitFuel as he describes in the following video...

Pretty cool video and I appreciate his demo on how to "marinate" baits properly to get the best results and not impact the structure of the baits (especially those that contain salt) if you add to much to the package.

Sounds like it could be a great non-smelly alternative to Powerbait so I just picked up a bottle to check it out.

If you are interested in getting a bottle of BaitFuel for yourself, click on the image below to access the current inventory at Omnia Fishing plus more video info on the science behind the scent...