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Posts: 3242
Location: Racine, Wi | This friday I was fishing a lake, and I had a good fish follow in a bucktail. I then flipped a Twin Tail out 30 feet or so, and she came in right on the bait. She followed it 7 or8 times, with her mouth opening and closing, as if she was gonna eat, then she just disappeared!!!! I kept doing circles for a few more mins, then started casting again.
Now the thing is..... I just picked that bait up on the way up there, and I noticed the rubber bait smelled really new. (meaning it had a pretty strong rubber smell to it) Do you think that makes a difference, and could have turned that fish off??
I ended up throwing it in the livewell, and soaking it with the suckers to get the smell off of it. |
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Posts: 188
Location: Chicago | Joel,
If you ask me I think that sounds pretty normal for a Muskie, the fact it followed 7-8 time means something
was right. Open and closing it;s mouth sounds like it was ON versus OFF. Same thing happens to baits that are
5 years old. Who know maybe you need some xxx toy cleaner to help with the new rubber smell?
Rob |
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Posts: 2427
Location: Ft. Wayne Indiana | I don't believe in smell. It is my belief that fish hit lures because it is moving and looks like food, not smells like food. I have seen to many fish caught on Bulldawgs to think the rubber smell affects the fish. The fish was just acting like muskies do. The smell of the lure had nothing to do with it. |
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| I don't believe muskies will strike because of smell, but I do believe that followers can be turned off by smell. I spray my new plastics with a bass fishing shad scent. Gets rid of the petroleum / plastic smell. |
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Posts: 1137
Location: Holly, MI | After a follow or two with her mouth opening and closing i definatly would have added scent to the twin-fin and tossed it right back. I keep some in the box and don't use it very often but think it can be a final straw to break the back of the follower. They see it, feel it and now smell it too. An animal wouldn't even have a nose if it never used it or needed it. |
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Posts: 3242
Location: Racine, Wi | I agree with you Mike in that I don't think smell plays that big of a role, and normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but when I smelled this bait, it was alot stronger of a "new" smell than any bulldawgs that I have had, or any other baits like that. Like Lobi said, if it was opening an closing it's mouth, it's almost like it was trying to get a taste for it, and something was wrong to the fish.
I changed speeds, depths, and the circle I was doing gave the fish plenty of room to move. Plus, it was on the back side of the boat, so I wasn't drifting over the fish.
Just plain sucks when you get a good fish up, and active, and they ditch ya. 
She was a FAT suspendo too, so it would have been cool to get her.
That's fishing I guess. |
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Posts: 259
Location: Alexandria, MN | Fish can only smell scents that disolve in water -- so the plastic/oil/gas and suntan
lotion smells do not go into the water. If anything I would guess the lack of a smell
maybe kept her from eating. She wanted to, just something wasn't right.
The idea of hitting the lure with some scent is a killer, if you have a chronic follower.
I have had fish follow 3,4,5 times and never spooked them, they just leave. Add
some scent and they can't stop themselves.
Good Luck!
Steve |
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Posts: 2112
Location: The Sportsman, home, or out on the water | I've caught fish on bulldawgs straight out of the package (after sharpening the hooks, of course). Muskys are just nuts like that sometimes. |
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| last week I put on three brand new lures that had never been used. I sharpened the hooks casted out. Three lures two muskies and one northern. At that rate Rollie and Helen's have got to love me. The lures were not plastic though.
ande |
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Posts: 1769
Location: Algonquin, ILL | Many Many moons ago my wife got her first legal musky on a small sucker that she dropped into a small pool of oil and gas in the splashwell of a rental resort boat so I don't think that smell makes much a difference that is unless of course it smells like Tuffy1  ( Just Kidding Joel )
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Posts: 561
Location: Monee, Illinois | Don't think the smell has to do with it. If anything I feel a NEW lure will help.
Pga |
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Posts: 4266
| Catfish might feed by smell, muskies are a different story. If they took the time to smell their prey, I think that they would be very skinny. I think that they are purely reactionary strikers.
As far as smell turning fish off, I spent a year using different fish attractants to see if smell would turn followers into strikers.........nope. Same as usual.
If a lure....like you said, a brand new rubber or plastic lure....emits a strong smell that the fish finds displeasing, it might turn followers away.
Who's to know for sure? All I know is that all of the lures that I scent-treated still stink.
I know one old timer told me that any time he catches a northern on a lure, he'll rub the lure on the northern to transfer the northern stink onto the lure.
Beav
Edited by Beaver 8/3/2004 8:19 PM
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