Wade Ryan, formerly known as Murse, showed a pre-season pre-baiting with dog food AND liquid smoke. Others on here have said liquid smoke has worked for them. Clint Locklear has a new spray for misting on fish food pellets that he says is liquid smoke and anise. I’ll assume it contains other goodies too. In keeping with what has been reported from these two people I trust, I’m chunking fish, marinating them in liquid smoke and anise mixed together and then freezing them for future pocket sets. So far I’ve got about 4 gallons put up and will have 10 or more gallons when I’m done.

I’m also going to try mixing bulk teriyaki sauce with liquid smoke to see which the coon like better. If this works as well as I think it should, I may have an over-the-counter recipe that I can make without having to buy gallons of bait down the road.

Do some tests and see what the animals say. I would do that first before putting up another six gallons.

A lot of grocery store baits work great. Let us know the results.

Brian

So when your freezing this bait are you freezing It altogether?
If It were me Id freeze the marinated pieces individually. Put the pieces on a cookie sheet and freeze. Then dump them In a bucket. That way when you get to trapping you can just take out what you need and you won't have to thaw the whole bucket.

I know we've talked about smoke extensively. I'm a pretty big proponent on it's use. I've honestly not found a fur-bearer in Nebraska that isn't attracted to it at some level of interest. I used liquid smoke on dog food which worked quite well as it would absorb into the dog food, and most of the time the coons would find the smoke on the first night. That being said it will lose a lot of it's punch rather quickly, and I'm not sure how well it will do if you're freezing it.

I'm obviously no commercial bait maker, but I'd make a couple of suggestions. If you're going to use liquid smoke just freeze the fish ground up or whatever, and apply the liquid smoke just before you set it. The second suggestion would be to look into smoke fragrance oil. The reason I didn't use the oil on the dog food was because I was simply baiting coons, and on a pretty large scale. The cost of the oil would have been counter intuitive. If I was going to try to make a predator or even coon bait out of fish I believe I'd use the oil rather than the store bought liquid smoke.

First off, I got a gallon of liquid smoke as bear bait (not that I hunt bears) but it was cheap so I thought I’d give it a try. Next, when I thaw bait I do it a day or two in advance, in the basement, so it’s beginning to turn a little before I actually put it out.

I do like the idea of freezing first and applying smoke just before use. Being a bit (too) focused during trapping season, I’ll never remember to apply the smoke mixture. Pre freeze marinating gives the chance it might actually have smell over the smell of fish.

I’d use a grinder if I had one. That would make things easier.

Good advice here.
This is what trail cameras are perfect for!
The money saved on a marginal bait and put into a camera, will save more money in the long run.
Once you establish a great reaction from critters, THEN it's time to make a large batch...…..providing you documented the recipe.

We’ve used liquid (from the grocery store) smoke mixed with ground up fish with the whole works frozen for 4 months before season. Used it in DPs and while the liquid smoke odor was mild, it worked pretty good. Second year on old-first-year-made-and-kept-frozen bait didnt work at all in DPs. From there we moved to pockets and 2-inch black plastic pipes shoved horizontally in the bank with plain chunked fish. That worked well. This year I thought I’d try a smoke and anise marinade followed by freezing since I no longer have a grinder available. Chunked fish even with a slight smoky smell should work fine. I’ll keep you posted come coon season.

I’m also going to use Locklesr’s Smoky bait spray on fish food pellets. The ZTraps we use for dry setting with this combination should produce pretty well. I’ve pre-baited areas using dog/cat/fish food and trail cams have shown lots of activity in the past using liquid smoke on the bait. As Wade Ryan pointed out, his pre-baits with liquid smoke get hit hard. MN coon should like it too.

There's guys that catch 1000's of coons with nothing more than fish in a pocket I think you'll do just fine. Smoke's just another additive which I don't see hurting anything. I used a bait prepared following an old recipe from Mel H. last year with a fish base in front of the camera and then on the line. It worked quite well. Almost too well on badger's which I really wasn't interested in catching in December in Nebraska. I do know that coon will eat anything, and I mean just about anything with smoke on it. June also has a lure maybe Smoky Post? That's got a very smoke heavy smell to it. I have no doubt it would do well on the coons around here, but I think he suggests using it on scent posts for coyotes. Smoke essentially gives you the camp fire set, without the campfire.

First look at what the purpose of pre-baiting is. I really think most trappers throw out pre-baits with no concept of what they are trying to achieve. For me, and I will add I have pre-baited coon and fox for many years. The main reason is to create a habit in the fox or coon to come and check the spot out every time they come through on their circuit or travels. I could care less about feeding them. Buried rotten meat will do the same thing on drawing to mark the area. When oils such as smoke, persimmon or even anise, and there are a few more that I will not mention, when added to a plateable base and then leaches into the ground or some other form odor of holding material the animal will continue to check the spot out even if the base is no longer there. Smoke and persimmon creates a desire to taste. So even when bait is gone the smoke and other similar odors creates a desire to check out the spot.

I would agree when I baited coons I really had two things I wanted to do. I wanted them to come to the bait, and I wanted them to come back even after it was empty every night. I had coons visiting many days after the bait was gone I don't remember exactly how many, but I would place these in areas that weren't highly traveled by coons in the first place. The other reason I baited was because time was an issue for me. I couldn't set two traps at a bridge for 100 bridges, and keep going with my daily career. I used the baits to get a good majority of the coons in one certain area at one time, and consistently. I then took as many as I could as quickly as I could.

Take it or leave it, just remember they are just animals, and even better they are curious by nature. Bait is easy to make and keeping them interested is just as easy. JMO, one of the biggest problems with bait&lure is the fact there are so many ingredients out there a lot of people think they need this that and the next to make an effective bait. Don't get wrapped around the axle on making bait, simplify your needs and with an understanding on your "target animal" or critter as I say it, will help you "formulate" tha secret "concoction". JMO, When you're testing your bait don't test in an area that is pre-baited or has been in the past if any. Fresh site with no obvious sign, then I'd go from there to sign etc... jmo

^^^ You can't say that enough times.

good post, TDHP.
Jim

I would never tell anyone to try to formulate a pre-bait. or spend a lot of money on a pre-bait. I always use what is easy to obtain that is going to attract the target. cheap dog or cat food floating fish food will work on coon and fox, and a bag of corn mixed in will also work. Put into a 5 gallon bucket take 4oz of veg oil and mix in an oz of smoke persimmon or what ever you are using, then mix the 5 ozs into the bucket and seal for what ever time or take right out to the site. again I like to dig into the soft soil so it lasts longer and leaches into the soil. a gallon of pre-bait dug in will last a long time. you don't want to get to detailed with a pre-bait like you would a bait. I don't care if the pre-bait changes.

I always believed in the kiss approach to prebaiting. Timing is another factor not considered. Family units grow up and move on. So I try and keep them interested when they really want/need grocerys. Not to mention a well fed yoy will be considerabley bigger than its normal counter parts

In some states It's Illegal to feed or bait wild life In the off season. It Is In WI.

In Minnesota, to the best of my knowledge, bait is meat/fish/fowl. Grain/pet food isn’t.

Pre baiting does not have to be something eatten, it can be a attractor like fish oil or some other oil to cause digging and marking. Buried meat scrapes work the same.

I used real smoke. Fake smoke is for sissies, lol. I'm pretty sure this is a really old method of making fish reach out farther and be more attractive to critters.