Additive for fish based coon bait?

Im debating between adding anise oil extract or a liquid smoke to my homemade fish paste bait for coon.

I'm making it out of smashed up frozen fresh smelt, added sodium benzoate and now wondering what to throw in to help as a lure. I plan on using it in pipe sets, pocket holes and smear type sets.

Thanks

Smoke oil or get some smoked clams to add.

What about scraping the gunk out of the inside of my smoker and adding that?

Maybe if we're talking about the grease. I wouldn't add anything that has a lot of ashes in it.

Why not run two small batches of them both and see which one performs better for you? I can tell you this..if you are using a good fish base, it won't really matter if there are coon in the area. A good fish based bait will carry and provide enough odor alone to attract coon, everything else is an add on and sometimes could hurt your bait instead of improving it. jmo

Anise IMO is a very poor additive to a coon bait or lure.

rich kasper made a coon bait that was an improvement over straight fish. had a lot of shellfish in it.

matt jones did too. matts had a cherry odor. coons loved it. so did beaver. if you can get matt to sell you some and beaver are around make sure your staked to hold a few beaver also