Settling the scent debate once and for all.

There is plenty of debate among anglers about the importance of scent on baits. Many companies sell attractants or many anglers like myself make their own. How important is scent? In my opinion, VERY. Why is my opinion better? Because it's backed by science. So let's settle the scent debate once and for all! The fact is that fish a) have nostrils, so they can smell and, b) most fish can smell one drop of scent in 100 gallons of water. So I'd say that warrants using scents. I've had mixed results with scents commercial and homemade. None of the commercial scents impressed me and I've had better results with homemade. This summer I learned something new though. Enzymes! A friend of mine tried YUM soft-baits with LPT (Live Prey Technology) Apparently, when a fish, shrimp, crayfish, worm or other live bait is wounded, it releases an enzyme that drives fish into a feeding frenzy. Problem is, a wounded bait only puts out a small amount of this enzyme, enough to attract only nearby predators. Well, the people at YUM have made an artificial replica of this enzyme and use it in their baits. Myself, I'd recommend the spray over the pre-scented packaged soft-baits so you can keep reapplying it to soft baits and other artificial baits too. The spray comes in 3 flavors, Shad, Shrimp and Garlic and all have the same enzyme stuff as the soft baits. They work too! They can attract fish from 20-30 feet away. All the YUM products seem reasonably priced too. A pack of 20 grubs will cost about $4 and a bottle of the spray is about $6. Not bad!