Fish Attractant Scents

(I've been saying  his about oil vs. water based scents for a long time.)

MAKING SENSE OUT OF FISH SCENTS 

Facts  About Fish Attractants

Fish scents took the fishing industry by storm back in the 1980s. Fisheries biologist Bob Knopf wrote numerous articles on various scientific topics of interest to fishermen, including the effectiveness, and limitations, of scent products. The following excerpts from this 1987 Fishing Facts article still pretty much stand to this day nearly 40 years later.

🎣 First and foremost, for a scent to work, THERE HAVE TO BE FISH IN THE IMMEDIATE AREA. If we fish in non-productive areas, the best of anything won't help us.

🎣 Secondly, there are simply times when the fish are so inactive or turned off that the best angler using the best technique will have a tough time catching them.

🎣 Lastly, there's a lot of confusion on fish scents, so here's the straight story.
Two key factors determine a scent's effectiveness. 

1. First it must contain substances that smell attractive to fish. These substances will be even more efficient if they stimulate the fish to become active and feed. 

2. Secondly, once it incoporates a scent that smells good, it must disperse in a manner so that fish can, "smell" it.

🎣 This is where a problem occurs with some scents.
Many scents are, "oil-based." That sounds good at first, but remember - "oil based" means they do not mix in water.
You can test to see if a scent is oil-based by dropping some on the water surface. If it floats, as an oil slick, it's oil-based.
If it spreads out as a cloud it's water-soluble..., and THAT is what we want.

🎣 Oil-based scents work only once the fish takes them into their mouth or touches them. These appeal to the fish's sense of taste, which might cause the fish to hold a bait longer, allowing more time to set the hook. But - they can't be smelled to attract a fish from any kind of distance.

So we want to re-categorize the world of scents.
1. If it's oil based, we want to call it a "taste enhancer."
2. Only if its water based do we rightly call it a, "scent attractant."