What was the hardest concept for you to understand when you first started making baits and lures?

For me, I had two that kicked my arse early on.

The first was developing a good base for liquid lures. There are a lot of factors to consider, like weather resistance, scent release, consistency, and even ingredient compatibility. I'm sure many of us have mixed oil and glycerin together only to watch it separate. That experience either made you give up on the idea or pushed you to figure out why that happens and what adjustments you need to make.

The second was knowing how long to let a new formula marry before making another adjustment. Sometimes a blend just needs more time to come together, and it's hard to know whether the formula needs changing or if you simply need more patience.

What concepts gave you the biggest learning curve, and what finally made them click?

Learning the attractiveness of each ingredient on target species. Once you know that its much easier to formulate good stuff. For me 3 or 4 primary (top shelf) ingredients make up 80% to 90% of the attraction in a formulation then a sprinkling of other secondary ingredients take it up just a notch more. Hard to take a bunch of mediocre ingredients and put them together in the right recipe and make a great formulation. Also realizing the roles of different ingredients. Some ingredients work better in primary roles and some work better in very subtle secondary roles. Another thing that has helped me is developing a good standard of what kind of attraction is great, good and mediocre.
If your dont have a good standard you may be satisfied with mediocre.

Gosh! Though I didn’t see it as a challenge then, because I didn’t think it mattered, location! I WANTED to be on location, I just didn’t understand what “on location” meant! It’s one of those things you can talk about till you’re blue in the face…if you haven’t EXPERIENCED good location, you don’t know till you know.

I recommend to never do the “add this and that and fill the jar with this” school of thought. You need room for expansion and measure everything.

Always think about scaling up when measuring and making test batches.

Start with a good attractive base and every ingredient you put in have a reason as to why and know how it blends with other ingredients.

With enough trapping experience making great lures for personal use is SUPER easy. Making them commercially is a whole different ball game.