I understand that lure components can vary in strength from different suppliers, and can interact differently with different ingredients or bases. When developing a formula, how do you know when you've added enough?

Currently I'm working on food based lure for coyotes, which uses rendered fat from a couple different animals. The base has tested pretty well by itself when right on a travel way, and the animals are very close to it. Now I want to try extended its pulling range, in other words increasing its performance in "limit testing" as outlined in Mr. Dobbin's excellent book on testing lures and baits. I have several essential oil type fixatives on hand from a very reputable supplier (tonquin, oakmoss, ambergris, rue, lovage and a few others I'm not sure count as fixatives) as well as tinctured skunk essence, castor, mink and muskrat in both pure and tinctured forms.

I'm at a point in my experience where I need to start learning the pros and cons of these various ingredients, as I understand it is part of the journey for this pursuit. I've done enough "throw several ingredients that look promising in a bottle" that I've realized I need to be more methodical in how i work up a formula and start testing ingredient by ingredient.

What I was hoping for was a little discussion on how to figure out the best "pusher" ingredients for a given base and how to know when you've added enough to achieve the desired effect without overwhelming things.

Thanks very much for any advice on this thread and the dozens of hours of reading and pondering the rest of the posts on this sub forum have given me and countless others.

Intresting topic and some good questions.

First thing ill say i think this topic is definitely a more advanced kind of topic in lure making and trickier to find answers too. And I'll definitely say i probably have more questions in this area than i do answers but ill share my thoughts and opinions here. Just the topic of fixatives seems to have different meanings and purposes to different people. Ive played around with several of the ingredients that are commonly considered fixatives and some not so common. A fixative, by my meaning, is primarily used to make the odor to last longer more so than to carry farther. Now it is possible that in doing that it causes the odor to be detected from a farther distance or it may actually carry the odor farther. When I develop a formulation my first and by far most important goal is attraction. Not a "good enough level" but the highest amount i can get. I personally think that has more value than everything else combined by a large factor. My next important goal is longevity. And honestly how loud a formulation is or how far it reaches is really not to much of consideration for me. And the reason for me is I think animals as a whole (especially coyotes which is my primary target) can smell a formulation with any mildly strong odor from a much farther distance than i would ever need them to. The further an animal is from the set the less likely it is to come work it. And I base that off of reactions I've seen from the animals. One thing id point out is that its possible a formulation may not have enough attraction that the target animals will go too far out of their way to work it. Thats a question to consider and one only you can find the answer to.

As far as fixative some of the more powerful ones are finicky to work with. Some dont have a lot of attraction by themselves if any and with some there can be a very fine line between them adding value to a formulation and them decreasing the interest in the formulation.

My general approach to these synthetic or really powerful fixative ingredients is to first build a formulation with a level of attraction that meets my expectations then play with these ingredients to see if I can add just the right amount of the ingredient to where it just pushes it a notch higher.

Skunk essence is very popular with some people because it is very loud and I kind of think its an overrated ingredient on the basics that its real value is, in the right formulation and in the right situation it actually increases the up close attraction and its distant secondary value is its reach. And I say that because again I believe most animals can smell much better and farther than we give them credit. The other value of skunk for me is it just sells a formulation to those that think they have to have it and the stronger it is the better it is.

My personal experience with most animal fats I've played with (with the exception of good sun rendered fish oil) is they dont have that high of attraction compared to other ingredients but could possibly have some potential value as a conditioner in a formulation. But as a whole fish oil generally can do the same plus add attraction. Whenever you can find an ingredient that can fulfill a secondary need in a formulation but also adds to the attraction your really getting somewhere. Maybe this information can help. Hopefully others will share their thoughts and opinions fir the gain of all of us.

Ill add this, to summarize my long winded post, my personal opinion is it's "pulling range" is more tied to its level of attraction than other factors.

Here's something that might help you with where your at with your formulation and is fast and simple. Buy some high quality sun rendered trout oil from Mr Jameson and put about a teaspoon of it down a hole then about a foot and a half away put a teaspoon of your formulation as it is now. If they work the fish oil harder my opinion is your formulation may not have the attraction you need to start out with.
As I always say trust what the animals tell you more than what I say or anyone else. They know more than any of us. And good luck and have fun.

Yes Sir,

Very well written and gives me some food for thought! What I'm playing with is a base from an old ADC (the agency not just ADC as a general activity) formula that has done well across the country (this lure was even used as a comparison for the testing and development of SFE and FAS and scored well in the evaluations in the research papers I suspect you've probably looked at). I never really thought of it as being a "conditioner" as you said, but the recipe has some classic other ingredients and I think you've hit the nail on the head as to its purpose in the lure. Its basically there as a carrier for the other ingredients while adding a little something to the attractiveness of the lure.

I'm right there with you in wanting every ingredient to be a top attractor, the main reason I'm pursuing this is for my own daily work as a full time coyote guy. I can buy very good lures and baits which is what I use for most of my work, but lately it seems like all the fellows that developed the original recipes are retiring, selling their businesses, and when I order my next bottle or jar SOMETHING has changed and so far none of them have been for the better. I have at least 25 more years in this game and thought it was time to figure out how to stay ahead of this problem.

What I'm working on now is something sorta mild for spring and summer coyote work that is different than what the fur trappers in my area were using. Maybe I didnt phrase things the best way in my original question so I'll try again:

What's an efficient way to get to know an ingredient like say tonquin or rue or oakmoss? Is there any value in using a simple consistent base like lard, lanolin, and adding progressively larger amounts of something until it is just detectable to my nose after aging a few days? Will that give a good idea for general amounts to use in other formulations? and then putting it in test sets? Or do you need to use something as a base that's fairly attractive already and just do some sort of comparison test with both the new "boosted" base side by side with the original?

Not looking for chapter and verse from anyone as I know how hard won this knowledge has been for experienced formulations, but thought I would throw out my thought processes and hope for some nuggets to ponder on.

We were typing at the same time, that's a great suggestion and I will for sure put it into practice. I need to order some other things from Mr. Jameson soon anyway.

My experience is for ingredients like tonquin and especially oak moss you need an attractive base formulation to test them in. And then a side by side comparison like you stated to find the right amount. I've never played with rue. Here's my experience with oakmoss. Its a very very potent fixative, to the point its power is amazing to me. At least the pure oak moss resonate i bought. It shipped to me from England I believe. I had to cut it to very very low amout to get it to a workable level. For me synthetic tonquin has tested nothing like the real thing tonquin and I have seen that it doesn't add to the attraction to the formulation like the real stuff but can add to the value of a formulation i. Its own way. In my experience that makes it trickier to work with and I approach it a little different than I do the real stuff.

A general rule for me is test the ingredient by itself to see what its attraction level is. The less attraction it has by itself then it probably needs to add to the formulation from a different direction such as a conditioner, fixative, carrier or something like that to have value and generally you need to test that kind of stuff with a formulation with an already high level of attraction. Thats my approach so far with the experience I have.

I am primarily following this to learn others thoughts on fixatives. I will add to Yes Sir's comments on skunk. I don't like much if any in my canine lures. There are a couple good ones I've used that I can smell it in, but mildly. Generally if I can detect skunk in it, I am leery, and if I can smell skunk with my nose more than a few inches from the lure I figure it is too strong for coyotes or wolves. On the other hand, my marten lure I can smell from a hundred yards away. Different odors have attraction to different animals in different quantities.