Home-made attractants across species
The species pages hold some fifty recipes — they boil down to these families. How much does each one do for each fish?
Little · Useful · Made for it
| Largemouth Bass | Smallmouth Bass | Walleye | Northern Pike | Muskellunge (Muskie) | Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake) | Yellow Perch | Crappie | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water-based | ||||||||
| Salt–garlic brine / bag marinade | Made for it — Made for it: salt + garlic buys hold time on slow plastics | Made for it — The home version of Taku Ito's aged marinade — tubes, Ned baits, drop-shot plastics | Little | Little | Casi nunca | Useful — Garlic is a proven stocked-trout flavour; keep the salt light | Little | Little |
| Shellfish / craw stock | Useful — Craw flavour on jigs and creature baits around rock and wood | Made for it — Crayfish eater: stock soaked into tube stuffing; in current it lays a trail | Little | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Useful — Shrimp is a classic trout flavour for bait and soft beads | Useful — Small invertebrate eater — a shrimp note suits tiny baits | Little |
| Baitfish juice / brine / gel | Useful — Shad dip on trailers and swimbaits where shad are the forage | Useful — Drop-shot dip; water-based, so it trails in current | Made for it — The most scent-driven predator here short of trout; in rivers the trail recruits fish | Made for it — Injected into a static dead bait in cold water — the one place scent pulls pike | Little | Useful — Lake trout on spoons and tubes: lengthens the hold | Useful — Minnow-head flavour on spoons and small jigs | Made for it — Minnow eater: juice is safe on marabou and hair where oil is not |
| Worm / nightcrawler juice | Little | Little | Made for it — Crawler flavour on harness plastics and jig bodies | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Made for it — Brook and stocked trout: the worm is the reference bait | Made for it — A piece of worm is the standard perch bait — juice puts it on plastic | Little |
| Maggot / waxworm mash | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Little | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Useful — Ice and stillwater trout take spikes and waxworms readily | Made for it — The ice-fishing standard: tiny jigs tipped or flavoured with larvae | Useful — Winter crappie on tiny jigs: larvae turn a long look into a bite |
| Krill / shrimp soak | Little | Little | Little | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Made for it — Most scent-sensitive fish we cover; krill and shrimp are core salmonid flavours | Made for it — Krill water on micro plastics under the ice | Useful — A mild shrimp note on tube jigs when fish are only looking |
| Fish-sauce dip | Little | Little | Useful — Strong, salty, water-soluble — a quick dip for jig plastics | Useful — For slow baits and dead baits in cold water only | Casi nunca | Little | Little | Little |
| Anise–sugar dip | Little | Little | Little | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Useful — Old stocked-rainbow flavour; anglers swear by it, controlled evidence is thin | Little | Useful — Traditional panfish flavour — lore more than lab |
| Coffee–salt soak | Little | Little | — | — | Casi nunca | — | — | — |
| Nibble-style dough | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Made for it — Dough baits are THE stocked-trout bait where bait is legal | Useful — A crumb on a tiny hook works when the school is only pecking | Made for it — A nibble on the hook point is standard under lights and docks |
| Oil-based | ||||||||
| Garlic oil | Made for it — Bag oil for worms and creature baits: masks hands, extends the hold | Useful — Works with craw flavour; keep it off hair jigs | Useful — Garlic–anise on night jigs, when the fish hunts by nose and lateral line | Little | Casi nunca | Useful — A drop on spinners and spoons is a standard stocked-trout trick | Little | Little |
| Tinned-fish / sardine / minnow oil | Useful — Shad-water baits: trailers and swimbaits | Useful — A nose drop on deep drop-shot baits | Useful — Minnow oil on jig plastics; oil makes no trail, it buys hold time | Made for it — The classic: fish oil injected or brushed onto a dead bait | Little | Useful — Anise–tuna oil on hardware for lakers and stocked fish | Useful — Minnow-head oil, a toothpick drop on tiny jigs | Useful — A sardine-oil drop on plastic — never on marabou |
| Craw / shellfish oil and jig paste | Made for it — Jig-and-craw fishing is where taste decides hold or spit | Made for it — Crayfish is the staple; paste stays on in cold water | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Little | Casi nunca |
| Anise oil / sticky paste | Useful — The old worm-oil flavour; mostly a masking and confidence scent | Little | Little | Casi nunca | Little | Useful — Traditional on spoons and spinners for stocked fish | Little | Useful — Anise–minnow oil on tube jigs |
| Cod-liver / krill oil | Little | Little | Little | Little | Casi nunca | Useful — Oily marine note on spoons for lake trout | Useful — Toothpick drop on ice jigs | Little |
| Cold-water solid-fat smear | Little | Useful — Cold-water jig paste that liquid oils cannot match | Useful — Coconut-oil smear stays solid and stays on in cold rivers and under ice | Useful — Fish oil thickens near freezing — a fat base keeps it on a dead bait | Casi nunca | Useful — Laker spoon paste for deep, cold trolling and jigging | Little | Little |
| Neutral masking rub | Useful — Covers DEET, sunscreen and fuel on slow plastics | Useful — A bad smell fails the close inspection smallmouth are known for | Useful — The hand that threads the leech is the problem — mask or wash | Little | Useful — The only scent job that matters for muskie: nothing bad on the bait | Made for it — Salmonids react to human hand rinse (L-serine) at extreme dilution | Little | Little |
| Dry | ||||||||
| Salt–garlic shake | Made for it — Bag-shake for stick baits and worms; salt also adds fall weight | Useful — Light coat on Ned and tube baits | Little | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Little | Little | Little |
| Shrimp / krill slime powder | Useful — Turns to slime when wet: taste without an oily film | Made for it — The home version of Ito's bite powder — water-soluble, so it trails in current | Useful — Dusts jig plastics; dissolves into the water the fish is facing | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Useful — Krill dust on soft beads and small plastics where scent is legal | Useful — Krill powder on micro plastics | Useful — A pinch on tube jigs when the school is looking, not biting |
| Salt-cured baitfish | Little | Little | Made for it — Salted minnows for tipping jigs — real meat beats any potion | Made for it — Firms a dead bait so it survives the cast and the soak | Little | Useful — Lake trout take cut bait and salted minnows where bait is legal | Useful — A minnow head or a sliver of salted minnow on the spoon | Useful — Salted minnows keep when live ones will not |
| Borax roe cure | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Casi nunca | Made for it — The classic steelhead and trout bait — and the most regulated one | Little | Casi nunca |
| The common denominator | ||||||||
| Unscented hand and bait wash | Useful — Bass detect DEET at about 1 part per million (Berkley lab work) | Useful — Same lab finding; clear water and close inspection raise the stakes | Useful — Live-bait hands: wash before you thread the leech | Little | Made for it — The whole scent game for muskie is a clean bait | Made for it — Clean skin is itself a signal to salmonids — wash, then handle the fly or bead | Useful — Tiny baits carry a big share of whatever is on your fingers | Useful — Bug spray season is crappie-at-night season — keep it off the jig |
Four things recur everywhere: salt, a real-food flavour (fish, shellfish, worm), a carrier that suits the water (water-based trails in current, oil sticks and masks), and clean hands. Pick the flavour from what the fish eats.
Los niveles son juicios basados en las notas de especies de este sitio: tendencias, no garantías. La nota de cada celda indica en qué se apoya el nivel.
Tablas rápidas de especies
Capítulos relacionados
- Lobina · DIY fish attractants (home-made scent) — Every recipe family graded for every fish: little, useful, made for it
- Forage — What a fish eats tells you which flavour to mix