Ballin' On a Budget Tip: Fish Attractant

Anything you can legally do to increase the odds of catching a fish......DO IT! That's my belief and that's exactly why I use some kind of fish attractant. Besides sight and their amazing lateral line, smell and taste are also super important to a bass. When you think about it, it makes total sense. Most people don't realize how quickly a fish, a bass in this case, figures out its been duped by your plastic offering and spits out the lure. When a bass strikes, water, silt, vegetation and whatever else that was in the area is all sucked into its mouth. The bass rapidly expels the water through its gills and confirms if the object of its desire is edible or not. Again, this happens quickly and I will give you my example. I relate this action to when I've seen many species of pet fish in aquariums engulf a pebble and spit it out in a split second. I'm not an expert but I believe it is similar to what I'm talking about here. Meanwhile, you are in the boat or on the bank thinking about your next cast or those two dinks in the livewell you need to cull or that the fishing is so tough you should'v stayed home and cut the grass... wait... What? The point is that you get distracted. It happens to us all. All of us except the bass! The bass is always on the job! That's just nature and it's one of the things that makes fishing a great sport and why I said that you should do whatever you can to increase your chances of catching the fish. Folks at home, if you have not ever been on a hunting or fishing trip, you should know that the deck is stacked against you when you go up against Mother Nature! So with that being said, I use and recommend using some sort of fish attractant in order to get the bass to hold onto the lure just a little bit longer giving me more of an opportunity to detect the bite and set the hook and hopefully, catch the fish! That's what it's all about... Catching the fish! I use an aerosol product instead of the gels just because it's less messy but the tip will work for either type. The aerosol cans I use usually cost $7-$10 but this is a Ballin' On a Budget Tip and we want to save money anyway we can. Instead of spraying your worm, crawdad, swimbait or whatever after you have rigged up and 99% of your trusty fish attractant gets blown by the wind onto your fancy fish finder, the windshield, you and everything else but your bait, spray it directly into the zip lock bag the bait comes in! That's what I do. As soon as I open a new bag of soft plastic lures, I give it a quick squirt and let it marinate until I'm ready to use it. However, an extra common sense tip for your consideration is to always stay up wind and if possible, and as close to the down wind side of the boat if you must spray the bait. The excess of course will blow harmlessly out into the water and you'll be spared from those unpleasant glares from your fishing buddy after you just coated his cowling with oily over spray! Well, there you have it and I know.......BANG! (It's what I use).

Bonus Tip: If you want to really pinch pennies, any brand of garlic cooking spray will do. It will not work as well as the formulas designed to be used as a fish attractant.

Spray the attractant into the bag and save money!