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

Home-made attractants across species
	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	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Little	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Little	Little	Little
Anise–sugar dip	Little	Little	Little	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	—	—	Hardly ever	—	—	—
Nibble-style dough	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Little	Hardly ever
Anise oil / sticky paste	Useful — The old worm-oil flavour; mostly a masking and confidence scent	Little	Little	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	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	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Hardly ever	Made for it — The classic steelhead and trout bait — and the most regulated one	Little	Hardly ever
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.

Levels are judgements drawn from the species notes on this site — tendencies, not guarantees. Local forage, pressure and latitude shift them; the note in each cell says what the level rests on.

Species cheat sheets

Related chapters

Largemouth · 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