I plan make some of my own bobcat lures and lead in lure I would like to use mostly of all ingredient's that I currently have on hand
I have gallons of Propylene glycol , good clear fish oil ( carp) a few pounds of good beaver castor.
Sodium benzoate
About 30 ounces of 40 year old skunk tinture 37:1
Cherry oil
mink glands
fox urine
catnip,
fennel,
Apple
birch
coconut oil Bear grease, pork lard

What would be a good proportion's of Catnip to propylene?

I also have a bunch of older ground beaver meat and , smells good enough to put on a sandwich


What do you lure makers got for suggestions

With the price of cats where it’s at why not just buy some proven formulas? But that’s just me.

Not a lure maker, but know many, including Asa Lenon warned about catnip, as if it is too strong will repel some cats

No need to buy lure for cats.
Half a castor in a hayball suspended in a walkthru cubby will get you all the cats you can skin.

PG won't mix with oils. No point in using it in an oil-based mix. If you want to tincture castors before using them, to make a squirtable mix for instance, use vodka. 50 grams of castors per 500 ml of vodka.


I don't think you need sodium benzoate either, it's not like you're trying to stop something from actively rotting.


Cats like big heavy macrocyclic musks, such as deer musk, muskrat gland musk or the nearly identical or closely related synthetic musks (scentolide, ambrettolide, muscone, aurelione, etc.). They'll complement the castors well if you want to rely on the castors. These musks seem elicit the same reaction as catnip, and make cats euphoric and agitated and wanting to rub their faces against it. These things would make your mix interesting to cats.

If you want a tasty smell, I'd add some minty and maybe herbal-spicy essential oils, e.g. from plants of the carrot family, such as fennel, to the beaver paste, rather than use fruity smells or birch oil, and stop there.

A little bit of mink glands is nice because the mercaptans that give it the sharp blackcurrant-like note are relatively short-lived in the environment, so they'll signal that something interesting is right there and it's fresh.



I'm no expert and don't know much though.

Trappng for me is not about the price of fur,,, hasnt been for years, just living life the best I can till the end of my earthly journey

I have those ingredients,,, And I do have some commercial cat lures, Im not going to pay $8.00 an once for urine beaver castor and clove oil when I alread have a whole bunch.

I find so much more satisfaction doing my own things I use to make commercial lures for canines for others,,
I bait bears... and like some people some bears love certain foods and wont touch others




Lure making and lures are a lot like cooking,,, most people like certain things,,,, then others may have no interest

Thanks guys ,,, that is what I did not mostly know and am looking for


I have plenty of castor,,,,;) just wish I had a bit of muskrat gland

I also have some shellfish oil I would like to use up as part of a in-the-cage light trailing lure

Tatiana did some background searching..

Fascinating.
Of the synthetic musks which do you believe has the most value dollar wise .

They're all negligibly cheap compared to the real stuff. For instance, a musk deer pod costs around $20 per gram here (probably way more expensive over there) and typically weighs around 30 grams. $600. Only a part of it is musk, the rest is shell. Let's say 2/3, good case scenario. You get 20 grams of musk grains. Only about 0.5 to 2% of it is the volatile substance responsible for its smell, called muscone (there are other components in it, explaining the difference between the smell of the real thing and pure muscone). So you get 0.1 to 0.4 grams of muscone for $600. $1500 a gram, best case scenario. You can buy the identical chemical for $ 3.5 a gram or less (https://perfumersupplyhouse.com/product/l-muscone/)

Cis-ambrettolide (=Scentolide) is identical to nearly identical to muskrat musk, according to some research, and my nose confirms it.

Some older nitromusks traditionally used in luremaking (musk ambrette, musk ketone) are even cheaper than good new synthesized musks, but my impression is, their smells aren't "natural" at all (think shaving cream smell). It doesn't mean they aren't attractive to animals. They're probably widely mentioned in publicly available luremaking recipes because they were the first synthetic musks to appear on the market around the turn of the XIX century. And some newer macrocyclic musks that definitely do not occur in nature are definitely very, very alluring to many animals. I mentioned aurelione, the reaction of some house cats to it is pretty dramatic, and cats (as a family) are all pretty similar to each other behavior-wise.


A very small amount (several grams) will last you forever unless you're planning to mass-produce your lures.


I think there's plenty of room for experiment. I can't experiment much. I'm just an old lab rat stuck in the city most of the time.


There's also this neat substance called cat ketone, produced by Penta, a NJ-based company. It's the chemical responsible for the tomcat spray smell. Very potent. You can buy it here in Communist Russia in small vials, but I haven't been able to find a source for small quantities in the US. You can probably buy it as "cat essence" from luremaking suppliers