In my younger years when I spent much more time trolled for trout and salmon from here in New England to the Great Lakes, we always used scent on our plugs and spoons. I feel we caught more because of it. I had not fishing scent in the salt, til last fall on a headboat cod trip I start using Smelly Jelly in herring on my jigs and was high hook at the end of the day by alot. I have always had a bottle or two of herring or bunker in the surf stuff but have not used any scent on my surf fishing lures or plugs. In the surf the fish can't watch or follow the lure like trolling in freshwater. Would do you think or do you use scent in the surf?

Well..... I fill my wood poppers with pogie oil before fishing the ditch and I replenish them often.... I feel that it makes a BIG difference.

Last year I used scent for the first time surfishing. Mostly on soft plastics and on some plugs. I think it helped. Whether it is a fish attractant or (foul scent) blocker remains to be determined, but I think it gives you an edge.

During my charter boat days on Lake Ontario, I swore by spraying my spoons with WD40. I would start the morning running half my 8 rods with no WD40 on them and half with them. Call me crazy but the side with the WD40 always had the edge. The final stray that convinced me was a August salmon my party caught one day. I had sprayed 1 lure in the set up and that one went off. When I netted the fish, the salmon was missing 1 eye completely, eye socket mangled and healed over. The other eye was cloudy to the point that it appeared this fish was 95% blind. This fish had a huge head and very small body, you could tell it was having trouble eating.

There's a great video entitled "why fish strike" that has been around for a while. It is one of the most informative viedos I've seen. The video is based on salmon fishing, but when your done watching it, the gears in your head will be spinning with modifying the techniques in the video to striped bass fishing.

Basically, the guy is trolling 2 rods and has 2 cameras watching the baits on each rod. He changes, colors, scents, techniques throughtout the video and you would be amazed at how often fish are following his lure vs. striking the lure.

On the topic of scents, he takes 2 new lures out of the package, sets one down on his downrigger with no scent, the other lure dips in the bildge pump oils from his boat. The lure that was dipped in oil outproduces the brand new unscented lure by some rediculous amount - and you see it all on video.

I'm confinced, scents can give you that edge.

A few years back I started using smelly jelly on all my gear whether I was fishing from shore or in the boat..... fresh or salt. When I first tried it I wasn't convinced it made a difference so I did some experimenting with using scent and not using it. Using scent I had more aggressive strikes and caught more fish. In short.... don't leave home without it!

With all the money we spend on stuff why not spend a little more and hope you're getting an edge?

this is interesting because I have never really heard or read anything about using scents for stripers. I know it is big in freshwater though.
do they make an eel scent?

Smelly Jelly makes almost everything you can think, yes including eel.

some nights on monomoy i tryed sent , i took a em-t alkasalsa bottle end put cod liver oil in it .the bottle fit the rebel plug perfict, as well as my pack.problem was the oil got everwhere i would also add it to my teaser fly for the stink. did it help i don;t know for sure but i felt it helped .it sure did pick up the sand good. . As i also cod fished, i would use W-D 40 spray on my cod jig and my rubber teasers, did it help ??? some days it did, but sonetimesthe hole boat ,was slip and slide i think that stink is good.its a basses prime feeding sense dont u agree??????

buy a gallon of bunker/pogie oil fo $20-$30 and it will last you for years. Every year it gets thicker and thicker and smells nastier than the year before. You must spray it on the lure over the side of the boat, because it will make a smellymess on the deck. I keep my bucktail jigs/plastics in ziplock bags w/the oil. Can be messy, however, the stuff works.

When I was a kid, my grandfather had some whale oil from his whaling captain grandfather and we used it. Oil makes a great smelly trail, just like the natural oils of bait/natural prey.

Being a converted flyfisher, I am convinced that oil makes a huge difference. Smelly flies work great. I have old (smelly)flies that I used as teasers years later and they attracted fish.

theres no dought in my mind that scent works for stripers. Back when scents first hit the market I bought a bottle and put it in my tackle box, the bottle eventually started to leak all over one of my spools of braided line (totally saturated the braid). one day I put the spool on my reel and casted it out and noticed that the scent was coming off the line and making an oil type slickon top of the water. I told my buddy to look at how the scent made a perfect line as it was coming off the braid, as we were watching it, a huge striper came up to the top and followed the scent line for about 15' until it noticed us and swam away

this is interesting because I have never really heard or read anything about using scents for stripers. I know it is big in freshwater though.
do they make an eel scent?

no eel scent that i know of....but they have several crawdad oils
that smell just the same as lobsters..... which is my choice.
it does the job and isnt as *foul smelling as the fish scents.
lobsters are one of their favorite foods....when available.

(*since it gets on everything, it's the least destructive)

I would like to convert the bumker oil to a gel/paste type substance, any suggestions ?

One idea would be to mix vaseline with the bunker oil then let it sit to firm up. The gel will not get wash off as easily. If all else fails you can use it for chap lips. :hihi:

WD-40?? Fish wouldn't think that is a tainted smell? Do any of you know why WD-40 would work?

WD-40?? Fish wouldn't think that is a tainted smell? Do any of you know why WD-40 would work?

I was told by an old salt that it is made from bunker also called menhaden.they are very oily bait fish. So it is fish oil ....

I was told by an old salt that it is made from bunker also called menhaden.they are very oily bait fish. So it is fish oil ....

Lots of people were told that but it is entirely false (just read the can). Regardless, there is lots of anecdotal evidence that it works.