by Brian Waldman
From a conversation I had on a smallmouth board...
"OK, I'll play...
There is nothing special about salt, at least that I've ever seen tested, outside of manufacturers claims that fish hold "their" salted baits longer, and I wouldn't put much stock in that. The blood/salt taste theory is just that. It could just as easily be the case that the fish is tasting one of hundreds of posssible proteins, metals, fats, carbohydrates or amino acid combinations when it bites into something it wants to eat. We just don't know.
On how long a fish will hold an unsalted or unscented piece of plastic, it just depends. I've actually timed this for myself before out of curiosity. I've had fish hold on as long as 45 seconds or more before finally getting my bait back, all the while that fish is happily carrying that piece of plastic, hook and monofilament all over the damn cove. That's an awful long time! Sit at your desk and stop reading this post and time off 45 seconds on your watch before coming back and reading the rest of this...it's an eternity. I think there are numerous reasons or theories that could affect the length of time including individual preferences among bass, immediate competition from other bass for that item, pressure, taste, weight, realization of it being non-edible, or any other unnatural component.
Try this experiment...the next time you're drifting your tube for smallies, bury the hook point all the way into the tube and then don't set the hook on the bite. Just jiggle the bait in his mouth to make certain he's still holding on with slight pressure and see how long he'll actually hold onto your tube before letting go. Count off 1001, 1002, etc. until he lets go. It might be an eye opener.
The theory on adding salt as a way of evenly weighting a bait is interesting, as I have to admit I've never seen a manufacturer claim that as a reason for adding salt. The same goes for the "crunch" theory of a salty bait being more "textured" and appealing to a bass. It is true to a degree, of course (even weighting), which is why the Senko does what it does. But this only applies to unweighted baits, which most of us don't fish in any type of current. The minute you add lead into the picture, you completely negate any balanced fall unless that lead is added to a location near the center of mass for that bait.
Lead has a density that is more than 5X that of salt, so a tiny bit of lead will quickly overshadow any salt a manufacturer can add. It turns out that you can only add just over 30% salt by volume to a bait and still have enough plastisol left in the mix to be able to hold the bait together in any fishable form. It is also true that sand makes just as good a substitute for salt, and has the added benefit of not holding water and swelling up like a balloon on steroids. Sands parent material quartz has a density of 2.65 g/ml versus salts 2.17 g/ml. Lead BTW is about 11.4 g/ml and tungsten is roughly 19.25 g/ml depending on alloy content. BTW, those last figures are why tungsten weights are so much smaller than comparable lead weights [~40% greater density means an equal reduction (~40% smaller) in size]. Tru-Tungsten has now come out with a worm using tungsten 'dust' particles to weight the worm. I got to check some out at the Boat Show last month.
So count me as a skeptic when it comes to salt, garlic, anise, or any other special additive added to plastics. I certainly don't go out of my way to find unscented baits, but I also don't go out of my way to find and buy any particular scented ones either. As discussed in another thread that has started up today, shape and presentation of plastics is way more important (IMHO) than any scent factor, especially in a moving water scenario."
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