I’ve always been torn on the topic of lure attractants.
Part of me believes they work, or at least they can’t hurt. I figure anything that masks human scent is a good thing. And I’m a firm believer in salt. It just works.
Part of me also thinks they’re just a marketing ploy, at least in terms of scents and oils. After all, I’ve caught just as many fish on a Zoom Ol’ Monster (which is unscented) as I have a YUM 10-inch Ribbon Tail Worm (which is scented). Same goes for a jig dressed with a Zoom Big Salty Chunk versus a Berkley PowerBait Chigger Craw. Which is why I’m a firm believer that how a soft plastic moves is more important than whether or not it has scent.
Then I was emailed a link to a video from friend David James from Rapala. If I was 50/50 before, I’m 70/30 in favor of scents and attractants now. And it’s hard not to be 100 percent in favor of flavor.
Here, see the video for yourself:
What gets me isn’t that Trigger X got more bites. Like I said before, action is important, and Trigger X is more pliable than Berkley Gulp!, which could have played a factor.
What gets me is how long those fish held on to the Trigger X! That blew my mind. The fish spit out the Gulp! faster than any angler could have gotten a hook set. Yet they were trying to swallow the Trigger X Minnow. You don’t have to think hard to realize how many more hook ups you will get with a fish holding on that long.
If that video isn’t a screaming endorsement for the Ultrabite Pheromones Trigger X baits are enhanced with, I don’t know what is. All I know it was enough for me to go out and purchase a few bags of Hammer Worms and Flappin’ Craws to try out.