Human Scent

[PeterMac]

Talked with a guide last night that swears by removing all human scent from lures before fishing with them. Has a small bucket in his boat and washes his hands and lures with the bar soap you would use before hunting. Won't let anyone touch them after he cleans them off.

Myth or ??????

PeterMac

[Hammer Bob]

There is quite a bit of evidence that L-lysine from human hands repels fish. People have different levels of this amino acid on their hands and it is easily transfered to lures and bait. So there is a method to his madness!

[THE REEL HEY_YALL]

There is a guy down at the Cowlitz at the Barrier Dam that swears by this too. He fishes with a 6ft leader with corky and yarn. He saturates the tips of his fingers with shrimp oil and runs in the entire length of his leader before saturating the corky and yarn. He is, by far, the most successful fisherman I have seen down there. Cool thing is, he doesn't like the taste of fish so he releases his catch, instead of selling it out of the back of his truck, or slitting the belly open just for the eggs, and leave the carcass to rot.

[Salmonator]

I dunno. I've had several 8 fish salmon/steelhead days on my favorite coastal river (I don't know why I can't get past that number) all on eggs that bare hands have been all over. I believe that it might give you an edge on the really slow days, especially using slow bait presentations, but I think it is overrated. And I know that many people think differently. Opinions are like...

[WaterDog]

I use a bunch of different scents to mask the human scent and anything else. I think it does help. I have also witnessed the guy that smokes (no offense to smokers intended) three packs a day and uses no scent at all and consistantly brings fish in the boat. Go figure! http://www.ifish.net/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif

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EAT, SLEEP, FISH!

[Deleted User]

Last time I took one of my kids to the peds office I absconded with some of their size Large gloves. I generally wear one on my right hand, which is the hand I use to bait up with. Just started this year for the heck of it. Hasn't affected things that I know of.

[newt]

I'm with salmonater on this one. I've had phenomenal days steelhead and salmon fishing with straight eggs and my hands were groping all over the eggs.

There's no doubt attempts to mask scent certainly DON'T hurt but I also think guys get kind of anal about taking it to the extreme like yelling at anyone who dares touch a lure cleaned in the soap bucket....c'mon!

Anything and everything can work on a given day, I guess I'm just not convinced one needs to take it to extremes. That's not to say I'm careless....I'm not, I'll just keep doing my own thing.

[NorthRiverS]

I agree with Fobman. We used latex gloves and scents on our herring at Buoy 10. It sure didn't seem to improve our hook-up ratios compared to anyone else. Did keep our hands cleaner.

[Barnyard]

I wash my hands in toothpaste before I head out fishing...Don't know if it helps but it keeps my fishing buddy off my back...