92: Scent & Soft Plastics Part 2: Getting Scented

Scent & Soft Plastics Part 2: Getting Scented

By: Phil Foo

Scent; the secret in gradient when the fishing is slow. Of course if you are fishing in an empty body of water, no amount of scent will catch you a fish. You will then need a miracle instead. In the last issue we took a look at scent and how fishes are attracted by them. In this article we look at applying them.

Adding scent to your softbait is easy. You could just drown your softbaits in a bowl of scent and allow them to soak. While some may soak up the scent pretty well and some may not; depending on the material used to make the soft bait. As for paste you can just rub the scented paste on them. Here are some additional techniques to add scent to your softbaits.

[ some will hold the scent in better than others… ]

Scent By Injection

Get yourself an injection. I meant go buy an injection. Fill it up with scent and inject the scent into the soft bait. Inject all over but be careful not to inject your fingers with scent. Do not inject too much as doing so may cause your soft bait to deform. Do so just before you cast them out. Depending on the materials used in making the said softbaits; some will hold the scent in better than others.

Some of the most famous scents used by the pros in the Bass Masters. I have used them successfully here in Malaysia too.

Prick And Drown

Another method is to prick lots of holes on your softbaits using a needle (or pin) and allow them to sit in a tub of scent for some time. What you are trying to do here is to marinate the soft baits with the scent. The little holes should hold some scent. Stretching the soft bait while it is in the scent will ensure that the scent get into these holes.

Prick holes on your softbaits and drown them. Berkley Gulp! and Berkley Powerbait softbaits come scented. Pricking them allows more scent out.

Insert Scent

Scent can be inserted into soft baits. What you will need to do is to slid a hole in your soft bait and insert the scent there. Scent could be in the form of a scent capsule, pellets, etc. Purist may call you a cheater but you would probably be catching more fish than them. Be careful when you are slicing your softbaits. You do not want to destroy their form rendering them useless.

Other scents in the market come in various forms including paste, powder, etc.

Scented Paste

Scent in the form of paste tends to stay on longer as they take longer to dissolve. You can rub some paste on your soft bait and cast it out. You could also make little holes in your soft baits and stuff them with paste. They will stay on much longer. Scent paste can also be used in gaps that some softbaits have. These gaps are usually for the hooks to sit in making them weedless.

Using Scent To Mask Unnatural Odours

We humans emmit hormones and these hormones create odours or scent (if you want to call them that). These scents or odours can get transferred to our baits. Smokers especially should take note that smokers hands have the odour of stale cigarettes. These odour is sometimes the reason why fishes shy away from your bait. Another thing that tends to push fishes away are suntan lotion. Well, at least with the water base ones this issue is not as big a concern as the oil based ones.

Awesome Berkley Powerbaits attract fish and fish holds on to them longer because when the fish bites them, scent is released into the fishes mouth.

Other odours that scent can help mask are diesel, perfumes or cologne, etc. Did your eyes just pop open wide? Perfume or cologne on a fishing trip? Who wears perfume or cologne on a fishing trip? You will be surprise as some people do. I have gone fishing with an angler who did just that. He not only applies cologne before meeting up (at the jetty). He also carries the bottle of cologne with him on the boat. He uses it off and on while out at sea. Well, some people are just like that.

These powder baits are scented and they work very well.

Some Tips

When using scent, try to keep your soft bait in the zone for as long as you can. The scent is used to create a trail to help fishes locate your soft bait. Or if you’re cranking your soft bait in; go slow. If it is not in the zone or if the trail is broken, your bait may be feeling pretty lonely and safe. It also depends on what fish you are targeting.

Spray scent on your softbaits to help them attract fish.

If you are targeting fishes where slow reeling is not so good for example fishes such as barramundi; cast your soft bait out along the same line or near the same line over and over. The scent lingering along the line will eventually help investigative fish to chance upon your bait. Of course this means that you cannot do fanning.

Do try using scent on your next fishing trip. It is not a hundred percent guarantee that the scent used will catch you that fish, but it will certainly push your chances way up. Scent may not be suitable in certain waters and may even be a put off to fishes there especially if the scent is strange to them (fishes). You will have to experiment to find out what works and what doesn’t. Fish creatively and do give scent a try.