How to fish with
scented baits
Scented
baits catch more fish. That’s a fact.
And
because of that, scented baits of various styles are hitting the market at a
seemingly weekly basis. With the glut of new products out there, all vying for
your dollars, anglers need to become familiar with the subtleties and
limitations of these baits if they hope to catch more fish.
Nearly
everyone that uses scented baits has his own ideas and techniques how best to
use them. But before you cast one into your favorite lake or pond, there’s one
word to keep in mind: slow.
To
maximize the effectiveness of scented baits you have to fish the bait very
slowly. Whether you catch fish for a living or just for fun, you have to have a
minimum amount of patience, and this is where it will pay off. Because the
baits have built-in attractants, many anglers get excited and want to get the
bait in the water in as many different places as possible, hoping that the
increased number of presentations will increase the likelihood of a strike. But
it’s not the quantity of presentations that is important — it’s the quality.
Scented
baits release a lot of scent in an area — I use Gulp! and
PowerBait from Berkley, because it disperses more
scent than any other soft plastic bait on the market — it is important that you
fish the bait slowly. This helps to build up a scent cloud in the area. That
way you don’t necessarily have to get the bait in front of the fish to attract
its attention.
When you
fill the area with scent, fish that wouldn’t normally pay attention to the bait
(remember most bass spend 75-80 percent of their time in an inactive or
non-feeding mode) will be drawn in. That’s why I like to rig my drop-shot rigs
with scented baits. By dangling a Gulp! Sinking Minnow in the same place for
long enough time, I can fill the area with scent and attract bass that I might
not be able to attract otherwise. By releasing so much scent into the area,
Gulp! dramatically increases the size of the strike
zone, meaning you don’t have to worry about putting the bait in front of a fish
for it to be effective.
I’ve
witnessed the evolution of scent technology going back to when we used fish
oils and other homemade scents to apply to our baits. I always wanted a scent
that stayed on the bait and tasted good enough that the fish would hang on longer.
But I also wanted a scent that dispersed. For decades we had to settle for one
or the other - a kind of Catch-22. But now baits like Berkley’s Gulp! keep the scent on the bait so the fish won’t let go — and
they deliver the dispersion, too. Finally, the best of both worlds! And the
more slowly I fish, the more fish I catch.
Scott Suggs is the 2007 FLW
Champion and the first angler in professional bass fishing to win $1 million in
a single tournament.