Custom Baits - Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Muskygary on 01/10/15 07:43 UTC
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In other post we all pretty much agree that we add scent to the bag of plastic baits. Cooking the scent into the plastic is pretty much a waste of time; however gulp and trigger X must be cooking it into the plastic(?) The Gulp Alive of course is used as a soak (in the bottle). I have tried using regular plastics in gulp and it will work if your fishing them now. In a day or two they will get hard and be worthless. Wondering what the difference is in the plastic of these two baits and the scents we normally use?
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I haven't got the slightest idea about ANY of that stuff, but I would guess that at least some of the answers that you're looking for are proprietary secrets.
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Gulp and Trigger-x are not simply scent related. They use pheromones and amino acids to start a hit response. The material used as the bait itself is water based, hence the drying out if left in the open air. The juice they are packed in is also water-based, which leads me to my belief that fish can't smell oil based scents unless the oil can emulsify....mix with water. The effectiveness of the Gulp and Trigger-x is un-canny at times. My open water crappie gear always has Gulp in it of some type, most generally the 1" minnows or a 2 1/2" minnow, in two or three colors.
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Muskygary do they get hard if you leave them in the Liquid ? you look on the bottle of trigger x juice it says 7 years of development and 20 million dollars. I know that you need a razor blade if they dry on the hook. A think they are also made of a biodegradable material makes believe that there water based. Both products work..
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I have never tried the Trigger X liquid, but with the Gulp Alive; I always took the few plastics out at the end of the day and dried them off. Checked them a few days later and they were hard. Maybe I will experiment with leaving some in the juice for a week and see how they react? I have had times on Lake Winnie when a plastic minnow in gulp would outfish my buddies using live minnows; fishing perch.
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I was at Berkley's Spirit Lake, Iowa outlet store a few years back and ran into one of the researchers from the company, which is basically right across the street. We ended up having a real nice chat and this gent confirmed my suspicions that fish don't smell like we do and that's where a lot of confusion comes from on scents. The reason Berkley products [Powerbait and Gulp] are so successful is that each focuses on how fish smell, not us.
As I understood all of the complex comical jargon that was laid out in this little chat, pheromones and amino acids are both elements that are readily "sensed" by a fish's chemoreceptors located in their faces and inside channels in which water lows thru constantly...their equivalent to our nose. Amino acids are in the chemical make-up of every aspect of every critter on earth, so fish can use amino acids as a locator to home in on food. Pheromones can relate to food, a reaction to food, a reproductive signal....the list goes on. Somehow the research scientists have been able to zero in on pheromones that relate to food, replicate it and put it in the juice the Gulp stuff is packed in. Since Trigger-X is water soluble and uses a similar claim, I'd assume that their company has succeeded in similar findings and have taken the same route as Berkley. Powerbait is a plastic product and does not dry out. The technology is cooked into, which means ON as well, so by putting it I the water the whatever can be picked up by the water and sensed by fish. The "whatever" being a water-based or soluble product. I do know that if a Powerbait bait starts to not catch fish when it had bee hot when it came from the package, cutting a 1/4" of the nose end of the bait will fire up its productiveness again.
Tommy Skarlis can attest to this simple fact: If you want to catch walleyes, use Powerbait. If you are looking for crappies or panfish, Gulp is the way to go. Trigger-X seems to work on all of them.
Years ago when Powerbait was first introduced to the fishing world, Mepps/Mister Twister had a similar product called Exude. Exude was never a real good walleye bait even though the company made walleye sized bait using the technology, but the panfish tore Exude baits to pieces. The Exude baits didn't harden overnight on a jig but if you left one on a jig for a month you maybe would find it tough to remove. Mepps/Mister Twister did studies on the bait's ability to degrade when in the water constantly and found that any of the Exude baits left completely in the water for 4 months would result in a pile of crumbles resembling sand. What the make-up of the Exude was I have no idea.
All of these products focused on things that the research scientists knew that fish could sense [smell] in the water and reacted to. None contained any oil. None smelled like crawfish. None smelled like anise. None smelled like shad and for that matter none smelled very good when you got the stink on your hands. One thing that each of these products had from the get go was success. Berkley led the way and I think they are still the leader in this "smell" technology.
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I have never tried the Trigger X liquid, but with the Gulp Alive; I always took the few plastics out at the end of the day and dried them off. Checked them a few days later and they were hard. Maybe I will experiment with leaving some in the juice for a week and see how they react? I have had times on Lake Winnie when a plastic minnow in gulp would outfish my buddies using live minnows; fishing perch.
Gary....you can take the gulp off a hook and put it back in the jar of juice and it will be fine for r-use as long as its not all torn up. Same with the Trigger-X. Powerbait doesn't et hard like that.
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I'm actually working with some of this stuff as we speak...
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Gulp and Trigger-x are not simply scent related. They use pheromones and amino acids to start a hit response.
These products are scent related (otherwise they would be no different than any other product), but I don't know much about the mechanisms used in these products. So, spinning off of what Tom said, pheromones would not be a specific "flavor" like we think of when we think of scents; these are chemical signals that are scented by others (but have no tangible odor), and are most times used in mating scenarios, but they can also be used in fear response or danger/warning-type signals (which is my guess here). For the other component, I think Tom may actually meant enzymes?... these are specialized chemical proteins are used in digestion process; in theory, enzymes (also "unflavored") would make the fish want to eat when it encountered (scented) them, creating a chain reaction of actions (similar to the one in humans with yawning).
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enzymes?... these are specialized chemical proteins are used in digestion process; in theory, enzymes (also "unflavored") would make the fish want to eat when it encountered (scented) them, creating a chain reaction of actions (similar to the one in humans with yawning).
Like a "feeding frenzy" huh? (or a yawning frenzy I suppose) - what?.... I've seen it !
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"or a yawning frenzy"....per Jerry
You're the epitome of one aren't you?
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"or a yawning frenzy"....per Jerry
You're the epitome of one aren't you?
I'm pretty sure I INVENTED yawning ! ;)
what?... I'm pretty good at it!
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Thanks for the replies guys! A lot of good information in this!
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I do know that if a Powerbait bait starts to not catch fish when it had been hot when it came from the package, cutting a 1/4" of the nose end of the bait will fire up its productiveness again.
I can see this working because I had a tourney friend back in the 90s that was sponsored by Berkley and it was my understanding that Powerbait used some sort of flavor crystals in their baits, similar to how we use salt in ours. I was taught by my buddy to keep a .50 cal copper bore brush in my tackle box to "roughen up" my worms, potentially exposing more of the scent/flavor stuff to fish to have that added edge over other tourney anglers.
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Was told this by a friend that has fished tourneys since the 80's. Thought he was fibbing me, guess not? Hmmph.
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I can see this working because I had a tourney friend back in the 90s that was sponsored by Berkley and it was my understanding that Powerbait used some sort of flavor crystals in their baits, similar to how we use salt in ours. I was taught by my buddy to keep a .50 cal copper bore brush in my tackle box to "roughen up" my worms, potentially exposing more of the scent/flavor stuff to fish to have that added edge over other tourney anglers.
You old timers were CRUDE, huh? Copper Brushes and Flavor crystals?... sorta like Razors and Pop Rocks? :o never seen nuthin' like it... lol ;)
Just kiddin', I'm as old as you are and I remember the "flavor crystals", kinda like retsin in a Certs mint. Do ya remember Certs Mints Tom?
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Damn....Certs. When I quite smoking I lived on those things. And those copper brushes worked good for itches when Ma wasn't along in the boat. Pop rocks...todays pusses would eat them just to hear noise in their moth. We snorted them to clear blocked sinuses.
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Damn....Certs. When I quite smoking I lived on those things. And those copper brushes worked good for itches when Ma wasn't along in the boat. Pop rocks...todays pusses would eat them just to hear noise in their moth. We snorted them to clear blocked sinuses.
NICE!... that ALL made me laugh. I know some those "pusses"... I do.
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I already said Mr. Tom was from Columbia, but did Yawl believe ME?!
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I already said Mr. Tom was from Columbia, but did Yawl believe ME?!
Must be what the "C" stands for? ;)
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HAHA! Columbia Tom! #BKJgoesMissingByMorning
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There are areas in the factory that I am not allowed access to, but I can share the following:
Gulp! and PowerBait are flavored with stuff that fish like to eat - hence the saying "Fish bite and won't let go" They are not enhanced with pheromones - which have really not been proven to be as effective as some people may think. I do know that there have been numerous instances that fish have preferred artificial baits like Gulp! and PowerBait over live bait, the one true advantage that live bait has is that it wiggles and jiggles all on it's own where the angler has to "move" the artificial bait.
Not only do walleye love PowerBait - they also love Gulp! If fish have a preference - it would be: Bluegill = Gulp!, Crappies = PowerBait. Smallmouth = Gulp!, Largemouth = PowerBait. Regardless of the species they will eat both.
The trick of "roughing-up" PowerBait works extremely well because it exposes more surface area to the bait - therefore emitting more scent. I usually try to add more scent to all artificial baits.
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Good points, Tommy.
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Has anyone done any experimenting with leaving regular plastic in gulp over time? I know if you take it out of the gulp and leave it out it will get hard.
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I've done it and the plastics get cloudy...lose their transparency with time.
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Has anyone done any experimenting with leaving regular plastic in gulp over time? I know if you take it out of the gulp and leave it out it will get hard.
Have found that it only works in the short term in my experience, like only stays on for a 5-10 casts. I usually get the gulp spray bottle and reapply when I feel the need. I mainly use to spray on top waters. The last trout and red tournament I fished in, I literally caught a trout on every cast for over an hour. Eventually my wading partner got in on the act and joined in. This was by far the best fishing I have ever been on. The only reason I have any confidence that it worked was the other 2 guys on our team waded over to join us and were not getting the action we were with all throwing basically the same chartreuse or bone spook. We were catching fish probably 15-1 to them. Again the single greatest fishing experience i have ever had.
But alas we didn't even finish in the top 20. While we wore the trout out and had plenty to cull none had tournament winner size and our reds were in the middle of the slot.
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Down side with these additives is they firm the bait up. The only time I went trout fishing on in the gulf with my buddies I outfished them 10:1 or more. They all used Gulp baits.
The action of the bait was far more important than whatever was in the bait that day.
We both fished new penny color and my trout were larger and and more plentiful.
Bad part was, they were all broke from spending the big $$$$ on the Gulp buckets so I had to buy lunch!
In the end, I think if Gulp and Trigger X were so far superior, every pro angler, on every fishing circuit, would use them and the pro should never zero or not bring in a limit.
Gonna go with presentation over gimmick.
Jim
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Jim....I have noticed that when the fish do not want to hit Gulp or PowerBait or Trigger X, there's little, if anything, that can be done to coax them otherwise. I've also seen instances where having one of those baits made all the difference in the world as far as catching fish. I carry the respective Gulp and PowerBait products in my panfish and walleye tackle pails, Gulp in panfish pail, PowerBait in the walleye pail because that is where I see the preference. The Trigger X I have has done some hurt on crappies but other than that I don't mess with that product. But your observations are really spot on. I too like to lean heavy on plastic when I am fishing and find my true confidence there, but when a change is called for one of the fake foods will get the first nod.
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When the fishing gets tough there's always livebait. I would love to get one of those cameras where I could see what's down there as far as fish species. Never know what type fish are in certain spots.
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No gimmicks when it comes to Gulp! and PowerBait. And when I say this I am speaking from hundreds of personal experiences - not just one. I totally agree with presentation - but when you can enhance a presentation with scent - it makes it even more effective.
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I always keep a jar of Gulp in my bucket and have been using PowerBait scent on the plastics I make. I have had days that Gulp was the only bait catching fish, now if I could just keep from spilling those little jars all over myself.
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New to this site., it's awesome!, but not new to pouring. I am still old school regarding hand pouring (I do not inject). I guess for this topic it does not matter but I have to say that I couldn't disagree more about cooking the scent into the bait not being effective. I've done it for years and years. I've fished with and without scent for years and years as have friends of mine who use my baits and others without scent. My scent of choice is usually garlic. I do use shad and craw as well. If I use a bait that could represent both a shad or craw., garlic it is. Here's my 2 cents.. whatever scent is used., I do think fish respond to it. For me, I've seen garlic draw hard strikes where the fish won't let go.. the oil perhaps? Who knows why... I get the science behind the other commercial scents talked about BUT honestly, I know folks in the science (marine biology) field as well and regardless of what is talked about from the makers prospective, it is still and will always be a theology loaded with speculation of how and why fish may or may not respond. Guarantee you you'll find video footage of ANY scent traditionally used in the industry, showing fish respond to various scents. Garlic does "age" and if a bait isn't used for 2 seasons, I chuck it away. Shad and craw become more subtle but do not "change" scent where garlic does.. this is all my opinion and thought I would just throw it out there. :) Have a great one and I'd be happy to reply to an inquiries, questions... all the best.