A trout’s sense of smell

Checked out a book titled “The New American Trout Fishing” by John Merwin from the library. Chapter 3 – The Nature of Trout – discusses trout sensory systems. Their sense of smell is extraordinary capable of detecting some substances in concentrations as low as a few parts per billion, and possibly even less. A trout has two small nasal pits, one on each side of the snout forward of the eyes which water circulates. As many as five to ten million scent detecting cells may be find in these highly folded tissues within the nasal pits.

The trout’s ability to detect minute traces of scent have trout fishing implications. Some salmonoids have been showed to respond negatively to small concentrations of scent left when a human rinses his or her hand in the water.

Most artificial flies have some volatile aromatics used in their construction such as lacquer solvents or benzene-based compounds such as repellents in material storage. The author states this likely has little importance such as a dry fly. But how about a wet fly or nymph, especially when dead drifting? That trout has plenty of time to decide if he wants to eat or not.

Do any fly fisherman have methods for removing scent off flies? I am told saliva is repulsive to trout as well.

Is scent something you think about when trout fishing? Fish-attracting compounds have become very popular for many types of fishing in recent years. I saw they guys at Laguna Niguel putting on plastics when I was trout fishing in San Diego a few weeks a go.

Do any fly fisherman ever use fish-attracting spray on nymphs, or a big juicy wolly or streamer? Would the act itself be too reminiscent of baitfishing? Would seem you could get such fish attractant in a small spray that would easily fit in another pocket of a fly fishing vest.

I used fish attractant lake fishing back in high school and pretty much gave up on it as most of the time I was using spoons for northern pike anyway. The bottle leaked and made a stinky mess in my tackle box. Yet for trout maybe fish attractant really could come in handy?

Don’t know a thing about the trout’s sensory, but it sparked a childhood memory. My uncle used to take me fishing on a creek around Boaz Wi, and we always had to dip the bait in Papoose worm dip. We did catch some trout despite this action. Alway’s have wondered about the reason though.

Wally what an incredible connection and such a small world. I have fished the spillway at Boaz on Mill Creek several times. I have also fished upper Mill as well as West Fork by the archery range. Spillway is incredible. I’ve caught several thick 15-17″ browns there. The C&R area is pretty fantastic too. Your family still in the area?