Years ago my Wife and I had went to visit my now late Father in Law. He was busy mixing up up a homemade bass attractant from a recipe that he had found in a old outdoor magazine. I don't remember what went into this concoction, except for oil of anise. The stuff had a really strong smell that reminded me of licorice. He ended up asking me to meet him at the lake on Saturday to test the stuff out. At the time, I didn't know squat about bass fishing, but he said that was all the better and I eventually agreed to meet him.

Come Saturday, we met at the lake and he pointed out a row of stumps near the boat launch, that he said always held fish. We launched the boat and made the first pass, with him catching a fish off of three of the five stumps, while using the homemade scent. I didn't get so much as a bump. We backed off for a few minutes, then he had me spray my lure as we made another pass along the stump row. On that pass. I caught the first three large mouth bass of my life, while he caught nothing. We made a few more passes through the area and landed several more fish with both of us using the scent.

This leads me to my qustions.

Who uses scents and how helpfull are they in catching fish?

Will scents help to encourage bites from inactive fish that wouldn't have bit otherwise?