Is WD40 a good idea for fish attractant?

[Mildog]

Amen, Good stuff !! To each his own. I actually hate the Berkley gulp "plastics" (actually not plastic) but I have seen it out fish live bait a few times and have been told many times by anglers that it has for them as well. I use scents but not all the time. I have to admit I won't fish Kokes without Gulp Maggots, or other to tip my hooks....and for walleye, I sure like to tip with worms. In fishing there are no absolutes so one thing may or may not work from time to time that's the fun of fishing and trying to figure it out. One thing for sure, you catch fish on what you use !!!
Two quick stories,
#1 years ago at Lake Powell my father was using anchovies for Stripers, is there anything more smelly? He was hammering the stripers
his old buddy in the same boat ZERO, May dad started looking everything over, and set up was the same. Then he remembered how his buddy had splashed on the Old Spice after shaving in the morning (Quite heavy LOL) So pop cut off his leader retied it and baited his buddies hook for him, game on he started catching fish. They both could hardly believe it, something as smelly as a frozen anchovy made unattractive to the fish because he had some aftershave on his hands. TRUE STORY
#2 Forget the name but a "researcher" did some studies and had video to document. He put "clean'/ sterile lures out and they did not work as well. Then just to try something different on the other end of the spectrum, he dunked them in the sludge of his bilge all kinds of oils crud etc. Guess what ? The fish hit them much better and you could see it all on video. Go Figure !!
Mildog out

One of my all-time favorite gibes at anglers and their choice of baits was an old BC cartoon from the early 1980's.  In fact, it was cut out and hanging on the wall of the old Anglers' Inn in Sandy.  In it, one caveman was fishing and hauling fish out right and left.  Another caveman type who was also fishing...but catching nothing...asks the first one what he was using for bait.  The answer?  "Buzzard puke."  That was an inside joke with several of us old timers from that era.  We lived for the moments when some doofus asked the magic question..."Whatcha usin'?"  If we could avoid choking we blasted out the answer..."Buzzard puke."  Remember that?

Mildog smiling    Yes I do ! Those were great times Makes me laugh right now !! The other cartoon  that I remember and enjoyed (with one of my other passions being duck hunting), that we also had hanging on the wall, was the two cavemen crouched behind a boulder with a bird decoy out in front of them and a Tetradactyl gliding in to the decoy. The one caveman turns to the other and said "Don't you just love it when they cup their wings and come in like that LOL !!  We need to hook up and get out fishing soon !! After the crazy 4th we should make that happen.
Mildog Out !!

---

The patents are indeed off on the Salt.  In fact, one judge finally tossed it out saying it was not a unique idea and anyone could have done it.  Still, Gary said one time that he kept Gene in business with all of his payments.  LOL

Adding salt to a bait does weaken it.  I often suggest that the wacky ring/washer was invented to make the salted stick bait last longer.  Nevertheless, we catch a lot of fish on that rig.

The whole thing about scent, color, etc., etc., is controversial.  Indeed when the fish are hot putting gas on a lure won't impact the catch rate, but when the fish are off, touching the bait with a human hand seems to end your day.  I once did the gas demonstration and I have a friend that wont fish for King Salmon without nitrile gloves.

About 20 years ago there was a poll on a lure making web site called tackleunderground.com.  They are the premier group of lure designers from around the world (and a lot of beginners also) that collaborate on lure designs.  Great group of guys.  I have looked for it, but with changing servers and pages it appears to have been lost.  Nevertheless, I remember that the poll was something like "what is the top 10 things you look for in a lure?"

I don't think we came to a definitive conclusion, but I do remember that color was way down at number 9 and scent was at 10 or below.  Number one was more about action or size.  I think that the more you know about how light penetrates water the more color becomes important, and the more we change how we buy lures.  But this is a discussion on scent, and that one is even more controversial.

I will use one experience I had several years ago.  I was fishing in a little honey hole of a lake in Washington State that had huge Browns, both in size and numbers.  At the time, a Black with gold blade Panther Marten Spinner was the key, and had been for weeks.  One trip the fish would follow the lure back to the boat on every cast, often two or three fish at a time, but not take it.  We tried different spinners, different colors, different lures, and they would only follow the black and would not hit it.  About 3 hours of complete frustration left me with a final idea.  I had a bottle of Mikes Glow Scent in Nightcrawler in my tackle box that I bought in the early 80's (ACTUALLY PUT A PIECE OF REAL NIGHTCRAWLER ON FIRST AND THEY WOULD NOT TOUCH IT).  It was old, very old, and had never worked.  I put a couple of drops on the spinner and the first cast, and every cast for the next few hours, was FISH ON!  My partner fought the urge to put the scent on his lure for only so long then added it as well.  We got fishing flu and skipped work the next day and went back.  This time the fish were hitting the spinner like normal but when we put on the same scent they would not touch it at all.

I do not push scents, in fact I seldom use scents for myself.  I prefer to use cut bait, natural worms, a grasshopper or cricket, something natural if I resort to bait fishing.  I almost never add scent to lures.  BUT, for those times when nothing seems to work, I have a couple of bottles/tubes of a generic scent to add.  I suggest that a pair of good latex or nitrile gloves would make a better fisherman than most scents.  Still, as I have seen on those rare times, scent can make the fishing better, or make it worse.

I have learned on thing for sure.  Confidence often is more important than science.  I bet if I asked this site if red and white were any good for a lure that a huge percentage would mention how good it is.  I personally hate it, have caught less then 2 dozen fish on that color.  My wife loves it and has caught hundreds on it.  If the two of us are fishing together, and both have it on, she will catch fish and I get the skunk, so I take it off and find something else.  In all probability, if I left it on, I would do better, but I HAVE NO CONFIDENCE IN IT.  I like white, I like red, both work well for me, just don't combine them on me.  LOL

I hate bait fishing, hate powerbait in general, but, and I do mean but, a scientific comparison of two identical colors with different scents (one garlic of course) is merited.  Powerbait works, and works well (is it the color, the facts it floats, the scent, the combination of those factors?), but I still contest that just because Berkley says something does not make it so.  In fact, in my personal experience, their soft plastics with their proprietary scent/plastic seldom works as well as a salted bait or a regular bait with oil added to stop the baits from sticking together in the package.  

What I don't want to see is someone imposing my opinion on others.  I also refuse to have others impose their opinion on me.  I guess, in the end, I am just a flat out advocate of personal rights.

More good stuff, one thing related to your spinner story. Berkely did determine that fish seemed to learn and to some degree have memories. After a while they would quit responding to items tossed into the test tank. They would keep track of things like how many times they would grab items before refusing, how long a fish held something in their mouth before spitting out, In some cases they actually ate it etc.  Then they new they were really on to something. Your spinner story shows how they followed but didn't take but then it smelled different/good they did. Cool real life stuff. When I fish at Lake Powell and watch the 10th  or 15th boat in  just one day hit the same stretch of shoreline.  It makes you wonder when the fish  think I have seen that before and it didn't turn out good for me and I haven't seen  old brother frank since then. LOL. It may explain why a strange lure or bait sometimes works when old reliable doesn't. When we had a big fish tank with several species of game fish in it, they would react and get excited when they saw the white worm cup coming from across the store when we fed them. They knew what was coming. Every now and again we would toss hook-less lures in to see what they would do and it would not take long before they would not hit it after a couple times or so, unless you waited a few days. Wish we would have kept track of some of that to see how long they remembered.. Oh well those were the days !!! Fun Times !