warm water fishing and using scents is a real good idea. over the years - in the middle 80's before berkeley came out with power bait, they had a formula that was applied in spray and liquid (lotion like). it made a huge difference when applied to plastics. the fish held on more on the bite, which gave a better hook set chance. i never went into a tourny without the stuff. crappie, crawdad, shad, catfish etc. solutions. all pretty much scents of either fish or crawfish or stink.
when power biats - worms/grubs came out i got some from a berkeley rep and they were awesome.
now since then every form of power bait imaginable is available and for all species. they work - ask anyone that uses the stuff.
salt and other impregnated baits also work, but i think berkeley has the mac daddy corner on the market. IMO.
the other key thing to think about is....i feel from experience that scents work only on slow fished lures/baits, such as a worm, tube jig, curl tail grub, etc.
the crankbaits really are not aimed at anyting more than reaction and predidation strikes, so scents i feel don't help. fish don't nibble them, they whack it.
i recommend scents for the right situation. obviously i would never apply it to live bait.
i think if you read up on various pro fishermens sentiments, you'll find scents are a huge difference maker. and i doubt the difference is in their increased confidence - although that never hurts.
