SMELL THE POWER
Angling legend Adam Royter recounts the evolution of PowerBait and how the scent formula gives you an upper hand to catch more fish.
You know what I’m talking about. You almost can’t wait to do it… You kinda don’t want to – but then you do. And you’re kinda happy that you did! Right!?
Opening a bag of PowerBait and shoving your nose in there is something that only a dedicated angler can appreciate! I will accept the fact that to a small percentage of you, it’s got that coriander vibe going on and you just can’t stand it. But for the majority, and indeed, the people that work with fishing gear, it’s an alluring and somewhat naughty little stink-fest in there!
It’s not sugar & spice and all thing nice! I’m not saying that by any means, but what it is, keeps you coming back again and again.
So what is it? Why does the Powerbait scent make you want to keep coming back for more and what does this strange phenomenon mean to the fish that they’re designed to target!?
The Power
PowerBait was initially designed as a mouldable bait (circa 1988 and what we know today as PowerBait Trout Dough). At the time, in the US, soft baits were all the rage. There was the odd company making scents for applying to the outside your soft bait, but these had no scientific research to back them up, and others were just straight up, human masking agents, such as garlic and spearmint.
So from the research already done on the Trout Dough, the team at Berkley had that light bulb moment – let’s make soft baits smell and taste great to fish, and build the scent into the lure itself, so it never runs out!
Now came the fun part of trying to get a water-based fish feeding stimulant into an oil-based soft bait. Straight off the bat, the idea was to combine the two elements and see what happened. As it turned out, there was quite a bit of tweaking that needed doing to get this formula right. But as time progressed, so did the perfection of the soft bait material
The new PowerBait formula was born, and it had the best of every attribute that you could think of – suppleness, movement, colourisation, design, size range and now scent and taste! Mic drop and straight to the pub!
And to be honest, that’s kind of what they did! No one could touch them. Berkley started making claims like – ‘We have a PowerWorm that can beat any worm on the market’. And the thing is, they knew they were right!
The Edge
Why PowerBait works so well is twofold – first, you have the research into fish feeding stimulants, and how the fishes chemoceptors capture scent and taste in their brains, that switches feeding action to ‘ON’. Secondly, the implementation of scent bundles into a PVC material that allows a percentage of scent molecules always to contact water.
You have to keep in mind that regular soft baits are created mostly from hydrophobic, oil-based polymers which work as a barrier to getting scent into the water column.
Because there’s so much scent and flavour coming from PowerBait, fish tracking behind these baits are more likely to perceive it as real than artificial. But, it’s when they bite the PowerBait to the real trickery begins!
Fish have very accurate taste receptor in their mouths (and fins but that’s another story) used for the same purpose as ours – to tell us if it’s ok to swallow. If your soft bait looks like food, swims like food, smell like food and taste like food, then there’s zero chance they’ll ever spit it out!
You can get any-old soft bait to look the goods, but if you leave out the two of the most critical features (smell and taste), then you’re indeed dropping the ball well before the line.
If anything at all, the amount of scent that comes from PowerBait will mask all the horrid smells you’ve attached to your hands before you started fishing – sunscreen, bug spray, boat fuel, the BBQ sauce that dripped off your bacon & egg sanga etc.
A fish’s sense of smell is pretty damn good – 1 part per million. If we’re not on the same page yet, maybe this will help! If a fish could smell time, they could find you 1 minute in 2 years. Or one pinch of salt in 1000kg of potato chips. Even 1 cent in $10,000!
So all that soap, deodorant and hairstyling rubbish you smoodged all over your pretty looking carcass – yeah! They can smell ALL of that!
Hence, take note and be aware of the things you do leading up to when you grab those lures. It can pay dividends.
That, and also put on a PowerBait for the ultimate in sneaky style fish trickery.
The End
PowerBait is ever-evolving. Although it might not say it on the pack, you can bet your two bobs on the fact that the fish feeding stimulant that’s inside every one of them is under constant change. Bigger, faster, better, stronger! We’re humans; we can’t help it!
You don’t eat food that looks or tastes bad, and neither do fish. PowerBait gives you the upper hand in both scent and taste.
Get some of that pork on ya fork!
Royter out.
By Adam Royter
Adam has done a lot of fishing in his 40 odd years and has been a long-standing member of the Berkley Pro Team since Powerbait’s first introduction to Australia. A passionate ambassador for recreational angling, Adam is also one of the most recognizable characters in the Australian fishing industry.
