Scents?

[no-one in particular]

Does anyone use these either on their baits or groundbait and are they any good. I am thinking specifically scent here, there are quite a few on the market, came across them while researching something and just wondered. Dynamite baits do about 12 ranging from meaty to pineapple and there was a boilie scent as well somewhere. I am thinking fish mainly find bait and groundbait by scent so any of them any good.

 

[David Rogers 3]

I use Liquid Worm in a Sonubaits Worm Fishmeal groundbait, in the hope that fish will be drawn in by the smell and then find no worms to eat other than the one on my hook. Not sure if it really works, and if the light, sandy soil in my garden (and all the surrounding area in which I live) produced enough worms to use them broken or chopped as groundbait, I'd be doing that for preference.

 

[markcw]

If feeder fishing, soak a piece of sponge in chosen flavour and put in feeder.
I use Predator Plus if fishing worm.
You have the attractant leaking out but no feed.
If I am using hard pellets I will have some soaking in either coconut flavour liquid or F1 sweet flavour. I have put these flavours over sweetcorn as well. They work on large pieces of punch bread down the side.
Sometimes when fishing floating crust I will lightly spray a flavour on it or use the cooking oil sprays. This flattens the surface around the bread and makes it easy to spot if a few freebies are out there.

 

[Steve Arnold]

If you mean the sprays, I don't as I feel they may waste a fair % of the liquid.

But I do use dips or "gunks" as a habit now as it gives me confidence. I build scent into my baits at every opportunity, my bait fridge has a selection of liquids containing krill,green lipped mussel powder, hemp oil, salmon oil, even a 1/2 litre of "Monster Crab" liquid that I hate the smell of!

I make up a "gunk" bait dip using Xanthan powder as a thickener as it's cheaper than buying the glycerine that many use.

Certainly for barbel, chub and carp it does no harm to add these flavours/scents or whatever you care to describe them as. Get a scent trail moving downstream of your bait and hopefully draw the fish to it.

Of the bought glugs I think it has been "Sticky The Krill" that works best for me in the river.

 

[markcw]

When I mean flavour spray , I mean I decant some into a small 50p pump action bottle, a quick press and a short fine mist comes out.
I use one of these bottles filled with 50/50 hair conditioner and water to lubricate my pole elastic.
The oil sprays are ready done from the supermarket

 

[markcw]

If you mean the sprays, I don't as I feel they may waste a fair % of the liquid.

But I do use dips or "gunks" as a habit now as it gives me confidence. I build scent into my baits at every opportunity, my bait fridge has a selection of liquids containing krill,green lipped mussel powder, hemp oil, salmon oil, even a 1/2 litre of "Monster Crab" liquid that I hate the smell of!

I make up a "gunk" bait dip using Xantham powder as a thickener as it's cheaper than buying the glycerine that many use.

Certainly for barbel, chub and carp it does no harm to add these flavours/scents or whatever you care to describe them as. Get a scent trail moving downstream of your bait and hopefully draw the fish to it.

Of the bought glugs I think it has been "Sticky The Krill" that works best for me in the river.

Try and get hold of some monster crab soft hooker pellets, and take some wet wipes with you to get the smell of your fingers.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

I've used favourings on some of my baits for many years and I think that typically they are successful.

I rarely ever use a bread bait without some puffs or drops of Tangerine or Pineapple essence and my maggot baits are usually steeped in a powdered flavoring. For punched bread I spray the slices for hook baits and keep them in individual Zipok bags.

Typically in my bait bag I carry 2 flavours of sweet corn and somtimes a flavoured luncheon meat too.

Some years ago I sat in a hotel bar in Oslo with Jan Porter, Stevie Gardner and Dave Vincent and half of the Norwegian National team discussing the pros and cons of flavoring baits; Jan and Stevie were all for it while Dave was totally against it.

One of my old (now sadly departed) angling friends once told me that "your bait bag smells like a tart's boudoir Peter" . . . . that's as maybe, but, I usually caught far more than he did

 

[108831]

I used to flavour my maggots,g.bait,these days I add flavour to my expander pellets(often monster crab,krill,pineapple.I also have started flavouring my trout pellets for barbel fishing,using oil based flavours,one table spoon per three pints(around a kilo),it works,but they work quite well without the flavouring....

 

[Hugh Bailey]

Going Back a few years, there was a flavoring called “Sweet Cajouser” or something similar. cant remember who made it but it was brilliant! Mine went off eventually and couldnt ever find it again.

 

[The Sogster]

I have tried many flavours over the years.
I now tend to stick to just four.

1) Super liquid scopex, used in groundbait and on pellets/ meat during the warmer months. I find this excellent for bream and tench.
2) custard powder, used in liquidised bread, bread mash and sprinkled on sliced bread for punching.
3) N-Butyric acid, used on meat and in cheese paste for winter river fishing. Rubbing your hands on your trousers whilst fishing it'll also guarantee a spot by any fire no matter how crowded the pub.
4) Geranium oil, used on maggots for roach fishing.

These are the ones that consistently seem to work for me.

 

[Hugh Bailey]

Scopex! That was great too!

 

[108831]

For bream I used to add evaporated milk and ice cream carp flavour to my groundbait,in fact I still have some,people used to walk by,then come back sniffing the air asking what that beautiful smell was....

 

[no-one in particular]

Thanks for all the replies, pineapple and scopex seem to be two that pop up a bit, Dynamite do both, they are quite cheap, I think I will get a couple of bottles and give them a try, I mostly use bread and sweetcorn so I might try soaking them. Occasionally meat as well.

 

[mikench]

F1, Aniseed, lo salt can all work or I like to think they do. I don't bother with stinky stuff as I can't stand the smell on my fingers. Gordon swears by black squid ink!??

 

[seth49]

Pineapple and chocolate orange flavours seem to work ok for me, and I do find adding Garam masala powder to my maggots improves them a lot, especially in colder weather.

 

[no-one in particular]

Pineapple and chocolate orange flavours seem to work ok for me, and I do find adding Garam masala powder to my maggots improves them a lot, especially in colder weather.

I have tried fermented yeast on maggots, that worked very well, and sweetcorn soaked in hot water and jam, that worked well for bream especially but, I have never tried any shop bought scents, I will give these Dynamite ones a go.

 

[theartist]

I've still got some Richworth Banana flavouring in my rucky, the stuff is so potent it just needs one drop otherwise the town centre gets closed and big black SUV's turn up. I find just one drop along with the usual supermarket dusting brings old stinky maggots back to a more palatable scent, and perch seem to dig it which is cool.

I've come to realise that there's no wonder scent and no miracle gain but they are good at offsetting marginal losses and covering off-putting odours

 

[Philip]

I am back and forth on scents and flavors.

They must work as fish clearly use smell as a sense to find food, however the question for me is whether they are better than the natural scent of the bait your using & secondly can they be counterproductive depending on the level used.

As an example I used to spray meat with things like Tutti frutti on the Kennet and it certainly worked but then I started to think why was I trying to change the smell of the meat which is an attractor in its own right ? If the Barbel wanted and were being attracted to the Tutti Frutti then it would make more sense to use something else as a carrier, for example some sort of paste with Tutti Frutti in it than spray it all over a bit of meat. Nowadays I rarely flavor baits although on occasion I may spray something like a bit of bread if the water has some color but more often than not I will just use a different bait.

The other point is I think people can over flavor their baits. Tim Paisley wrote some interesting stuff about this and the reaction of Carp to over flavored baits on one of the waters he fished. He noticed that a single highly flavored hookbait attracted Carp to the general area but then they appeared as if they were hunting around for something but could not pin point the actual bait itself. It was almost as if there was so much flavor in the water they couldn’t pin point the source amongst the “smog” if I can put it like that. If I use a human analogy (big word needed here, where is Nots Kev when you need him ? ) …I like curry but I prefer a korma to a vindaloo i.e if you over spice it your going to put me off. I think the same can apply to fish as well. The fact is that its very easy to over flavour baits and ground baits as there is always the underlying idea that “more” must be better…when perhaps the old adage less is more could actually be better on some occasions. Based on my own experience UNDER flavored baits can actually be productive. I have caught quite a few fish on washed out baits.

All that said adding flavor to baits and especially ground baits can be fun. One thing I do a lot is keep any sort of powders or liquids that have gone past their use by date as additives for ground bait. Old packets of things like powdered Coca, Nesquick old packets of soup powder and so on. My shed is full of stuff like that…I keep forgetting to take it with me when I go and I end up hoarding it all.

 

[no-one in particular]

The reason I was thinking specifically scent is, would it draw more fish in from farer away if it was more concentrated, especially on a river if it was a more concentrated scent in ground bait. I would expect my natural hook bait to do the rest. I will try some on hook bait but it was more would it draw more fish and thereby give me more fish or a chance of a fish in what I was thinking. So, what is the best all-round scent or what scent would be the best for different species and how would I apply that. Is aniseed better for roach than say hemp scent, would meaty scent be better for barbal than boilie scent say for example. I suppose that 's a very difficult one but just wondered what would be the take on that.
Scent is how a fish is drawn in, so I am thinking I could draw more in if I got it right or as best could be.

 

[steve2]

Most anglers I think choose additives, scents and flavouring by what appeal their own sense of smell and test.

I don’t know if any of you have Archie Braddock book “Fantastic Feeder Fishing” if you haven’t it is well worth getting hold of a copy and reading about his scents and flavourings experiments.