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Crappie minnows use their olfaction senses as a protection mechanism to sense danger. These minnows secret a pheromone that other crappie minnows smell to avoid danger areas. It is not known for sure if speckled bass can sense this pheromone but there are indications that they do just like the northern pike does.
You can use this fact to your advantage when you are crappie fishing for crapppie while bait fishing using such crappie live bait as minnows as fathead minnows and shiners. If you keep your crappie minnows alive while on the hook , there's a good possibility that any crapppie in the area will come to investigate because they can smell their danger pheromone.
Many crappie anglers swear by coating their artificial live bait imitations with a manufactures sent that is suppose simulate the smell of a distressed crappie minnows danger pheromone. To properly fish these artificial live bait imitations crappie anglersneed to use a slow crappie bait presentation while crappie fishing. There are other manufactured scents that imitate the smell of crayfish or shad that work well while papermouth fishing also. These scents are usually manufactured mixed with anise,salt,amino acids and mixture of shad or crayfish which are both excellent natural crappie baits. When you us these sprays make sure you donot touch your bait after spraying or you will defeat the purpose of using the sprays.
Studies have conducted to see what taste the calico bass respond too. The results seemed to favor just a few of the trial tastes. The best response came from crappie fishing baits sprayed scents and tastes that imitate small crayfish, crappie minnows such as fathead minnows, and shiners with shad imitations close behind.