Deep dive into attractants

Warning! Nerd talk!

Why should you use odorants and flavors when fishing?
A fishing lure or jig usually has no smell, but relies on the fish seeing it or sensing vibrations and sound. This works well in many cases, but is rarely optimal. Smell and taste are the most important senses for many fish species. Fish can smell certain substances in incredibly low concentrations, for some species down to one hundredth of a trillionth (14 zeros!)
They not only use smell to find food, but also to find conspecifics, to find their "home" in the river where they will spawn, and also to avoid predatory fish.
We have of course focused mostly on the active ingredients that have to do with foraging, but there are also other exciting active ingredients that we have used.
When some fish species are injured, they emit substances that can be detected by their conspecifics and other fish. These are called alarm pheromones. Similar substances are used by bees and other insects. If a bee is injured, it emits odors that put the entire hive on alert.
Similarly, an injured fish can warn the rest of the school that something scary is happening. You can observe the entire school changing its behavior and hiding or running away.
These pheromones also attract predators. A wounded prey is easier to catch, which gives the predator more calories for its effort. Studies show that this can also increase the prey's chance of escaping. If the prey attracts more predators, they will be able to disrupt the hunt and in the chaos, the chance of escaping increases.
Similar defense mechanisms are found in algae and plants. When they are eaten by herbivores such as snails and crustaceans, they can emit various substances. This means that in many cases the plants send out signals to attract predators. They can then eat or chase away those who eat the plants.

Waste products from prey can also be attractive to fish. For example, a high concentration of molecules found in crustacean feces will be a signal that "there is a lot of food here."
These substances are often ignored by those who develop fish attractants. They tend to focus on the substances that are released from the whole prey. This is often ground up and processed, and this is used in the bait. Or they choose different chemical substances that are found in the prey and use a combination of these. Usually a combination of amino acids and possibly nucleotides.
This certainly works well in itself. But it is probably rare for a predatory fish to find ground-up prey in nature. The smell they are looking for is that which comes from live prey. It is essentially what we call waste products.
The downside to using these substances in a bait is that they don't necessarily taste good. They might  attract fish very effectively, but they are not something the fish want to eat. They must therefore be mixed with effective flavorings and used in a concentration that can attract fish without compromising the taste of the bait.

The different attractants can work in different ways.
Some molecules make the fish search more generally. These may be called "investigation triggers"
In this case, you often see fish appear and search without necessarily finding the source of the smell. They often search along the bottom and more randomly in the area. Other molecules allow the fish to find out exactly where the food is and then you often see the fish moving in a zigzag pattern against the current towards the bait to find their way in. When this is done, the sense of taste comes into play. It doesn't help much if the prey smells good and looks delicious if it doesn't taste good. Fish also have taste cells outside their mouths. These are often on the lips, on the whiskers and even on the fins. Some catfish have taste cells over large parts of their bodies.
You can often see fish just pushing or rubbing themselves along the bait, this way they taste the food without necessarily biting into it. However, the taste buds inside the mouth are even more sensitive and selective than those on the outside, so if the bait doesn't taste good, it will quickly be spat out again.

There are a number of criteria that are important in determining whether a molecule is effective as an odorant:

The fish must be able to smell or taste it.
This means that the fish must have smell or taste receptors that perceive that the substance is there. Different substances require different concentrations.
The substance must not be very common in the fish's natural environment.
If it is already present in large quantities in the water, it will not be detected and create a reaction. For example, common salt may be attractive to some fish in fresh water, but have little or no effect in salt water.
Since water quality and nutrient content can fluctuate greatly throughout the year and from day to day, it may vary which substances will actually be possible for the fish to perceive.

The substance must be water-soluble
In order for the fish to be able to smell the substance, it must be soluble in water. There are many misunderstandings among anglers here. Some claim, for example, that oils cannot be effective because lipids is not water-soluble. This is wrong. Even if something is practically insoluble, most substances are soluble to some extent. The definition of “practically insoluble” is that ten thousand parts of “solvent” are required to dissolve a part of the substance in question. When we know that the solvent is water, we understand that there is a fairly good supply of this where we fish. When we also know that many fish can perceive some substances in concentrations lower than one part per trillion, we understand that water solubility is a relative term when we talk about attractants. An oil does not consist of pure fat either. There are many other different molecules that give it smell and taste. Anything that ends up in the water will also quickly be attacked by bacteria that will break it down into substances that may be attractive.

The substance should break down relatively quickly
For it to be appropriate for fish to use a substance to find food, it should not be too stable. The fish must follow fresh tracks to find food. If a substance remains in the water for weeks or years, it will be of little use to search for it. The exception may be if the concentration is high. The substances will quickly mix into the water and a high concentration will signal that prey is nearby. Stable substances may also be attractive in combination with other substances that break down more quickly.

One substance is rarely enough
All studies show that a mixture of many different substances is more effective than a single molecule. Fish often react to single molecules, but the reaction is usually stronger if several substances are used together.
This is also often seen when using natural baits. A combination of several can be more effective than using just one. Sometimes the fish will not bite on either mackerel or shrimp, but if you use both on the same hook you will start to catch. Squid and mussels are another cocktail that is effective. In freshwater, combos such as worms and corn are common. This gives you a more complex scent trail, which can be crucial.
We have also received many reports that Gobble Sticky in combination with natural baits has been the little extra that has produced fish on slow days.
A good bait should therefore contain a varied selection of substances that affect the fish's different senses in the most optimal way possible. Fish have many different receptors for taste and smell and each of these can perceive specific molecules. Each of the substances also has a concentration at which they function optimally. More is not necessarily better and some substances are enticing in low concentrations but become repulsive if overdosed.
Although some molecules can be effective on their own, it is often the combination of several different ones that really makes the fish react. And here there is apparently little logic. Two substances that individually give very little reaction can become very effective when combined. 1 plus 1 quickly becomes both 4 and 8 if you use the right substances in the right ratio. And to complicate things further, two substances that work well individually can work worse if they are combined. This may be because they cancel each other out and the smell or taste cells become overloaded and stop responding.
You must then use the right combination of the right substances in the right amount for the best results.

It is also important to remember that fish do not swim around in chemically pure water. Both fresh water and seawater contain many different nutrients and trace elements. Salts, gases, amino acids, organic substances and various waste products from animals and algae are dissolved in the water. This “background noise” of various molecules affects the fish’s sense of taste and smell.
If there are already amounts of a particular molecule in the water, for example after an algae bloom or after rain, this can affect how the bait works. Temperature and pH can also affect the fish's senses. This means that some baits work better under certain conditions or in certain places. Many have found that a bait that is great in one water is almost useless in another and that a bait that works well in the spring often stops working when the water gets warmer in the summer.
It is therefore probably impossible to create a bait that works optimally under all conditions. Experimentation is the key to success, and if you can see patterns in which bait works where and when, you will be successful far more often.

A little advertising:

When we developed Gobble Sticky we spent thousands of hours observing how fish react. Many of the hours were on fish in tanks, but most of the testing was done on wild fish in the sea and in freshwater. While in a tank you can get very measurable results (which are also very useful), it is when you test in the wild that you really get confirmation that something works in a fishing situation.

By using underwater cameras, we have been able to observe wild fish in their natural environment and under a wide range of conditions. This more closely reflects the challenges an angler will face in the real world. We see how weather and currents affect the effect and how different species are affected by different substances.
In this way we have come up with some mixtures that work in most conditions. We will not claim that everything works optimally every time, because that is not the case in the real world. Sometimes you will notice a big difference and sometimes (such as when the fish are really hungry) you will get just as many fish without Gobble.
But we are 100% convinced that overall and in the long run you will get much more fish by adding smell and taste than if you don't. And we have tried various other products and so far have not found anything that works better than our own. This is also the feedback we have received from customers and testers.
This is feedback from Jon, who has been testing our products since before they hit the market:
"I've bought a few similar products over the years but never noticed any difference using them until I tried this one…
…By the end of the day, the guide hadn't landed any fish, and I had caught five, which I'm sure was because I used the attractant on the lures...
...I've had similar results both on land and on the boat over the past few weeks trying out the odorant (Gobble). Normally I never use such products, but now I feel converted."

We believe there are several reasons for this.
We believe that our products are more complex than most others. We keep up to date with all available research and have contacts across much of the world with whom we communicate continuously. But we do not just follow established research. We have also drawn knowledge from ancient sources (back to the 17th century in fact) and from other cultures, where for example herbs, extracts, spices and more unusual ingredients have been used as bait for hundreds of years. By examining analyses of these we have found probable active ingredients which we have then tested in tanks and in the field. In this way we have found several exciting substances that are not commonly used. This, in combination with modern science, has meant that we have come up with some mixtures that work well on a great variety species.
While others have make fish attractants on a base of petroleum products (such as Vaseline and paraffin oil) we have chosen to use a natural base. A bonus here is that our base is edible and attractive to many species in itself. This means that Gobble Sticky consists of almost pure food, and that almost all the ingredients are something that fish will find smelling and tasting good. (A possible exception is some preservatives, but these are in very small quantities and without these the product would become unstable)