I saw a program several years ago where 2 fishing guides were arguing about scents and if they really made a difference. I have never used them myself but after seeing that program I am convinced that fish do smell stuff and not just catfish.

The one guy to prove his point took a piece of cloth and cut a small square out of it and dipped the square in some fish attractant. He then proceeded to fish with nothing but that piece of cloth on his line and low and behold he actually caught some fish with it.

The other guys response to that was that fish would hit anything if you wait long enough. So he takes a regular quarter and some JB weld and he welded the quarter to the shaft of a long hook. The hook sort of looked like a regular white perch/shiner hook. One of the gold ones that are about an inch long or so.

Anyway he fished with that quarter and he caught 2 small bass, a catfish, and a white perch.
So his conclusion was that fish will hit anything, be it a piece of scented cloth or a shiny quarter. He still maintained that the attractant didn't make a difference.

However when they used a piece of cloth without attractant they didn't catch a single fish so the first guy argued in return that the attractant did indeed work.

Fact is this: A bass (and many other species of fish) can smell approximately 1/200th of a drop of a substance in 100 gallons of water. Thats insane!!! They can smell your aftershave, soap you used in the shower that day, cologne, sunscreen, even the laundry detergent smell that is on your clothes(yes that gets on your hands).

If you put gas in your boat or your truck on the way to the fishing hole then you got contamination on your hands from the pump and that transfers to your bait/plastic jigs etc. Remember the fish can smell 1/200th so thats a spec so small you can't even see it with your eyes.

If nothing else the scent you put on your jigs at least covers up your human smells that rub off from your hands when you tie your lure or jig to the line.

So I say scent on!!

Now go out there and catch something