Put This Common Bathroom Product On Your Pole To Attract Nearby Fish

Most fishermen are borderline obsessed with finding the best spots to fish, the best baits to use, better equipment maintenance techniques, and any other nugget of knowledge they can find that will improve their ability to catch fish. Having spent nearly 30 years in the fishing industry as a fishing guide, instructor, professional angler, and outdoors journalist, I have experimented with a myriad of lures and techniques. Through that time, I have also noticed some fishing trends are cyclical.

One such cycle that seems to come around every so often is an old bass fisherman trick for getting a fish's attention. This method was wildly popular in the 1980s. It gained quite a bit of traction again around 2010 and, most recently, has popped up on a few YouTube videos, fishing message boards, and angling blogs. The trick is to use Alka-Seltzer tablets to create a natural looking bubble trail emitting from your lure. The idea originally is to make an air bubble trail like those made by crawfish. However, some anglers feel a denser cloud of bubbles is just as or even more effective in drawing strikes.

Either way, it seems Alka-Seltzer can increase your catches not only by helping regain your senses in the morning if you've stayed out a bit too long the night before, it can actually help fish notice your artificial offerings. Having personally tried it with success on largemouth bass, I have since also utilized this trick on crappie, trout, panfish, and even saltwater species.

This fishing hack is incredibly easy to accomplish. It essentially involves stuffing a chunk of Alka-Seltzer into a hollow bodied soft-plastic bait. It was first applied to tube baits, which are hollow and have a large opening beneath the tentacles extending from the back end. However, it can and has been used with any hollow bodied soft-plastic. Creature baits, along with artificial worms, lizards, and crawfish are all good candidates, as are craw trailers for jigs.

Originally, this technique was referred to as a fizzer bait (not to be confused with a fizzer needle, which is used for venting bass and other fish). True to its name, this hack will definitely make your baits fizz. In fact, if you've ever watched an Alka-Seltzer tablet dissolve, you'll understand why only a small chunk is used. So, the first thing to do is crumble some Alka-Seltzer tablets and put them in a container such as an old pill bottle so that they stay dry throughout a day on the water.

To make a regular hollow bodied lure fizz, just make a small slit in the bait and use tweezers to place a chunk of the bait in the body cavity. If you are using a tube, place a chunk of tablet in the body cavity through the opening in the back of the lure. Then, use a cotton ball or piece of foam or sponge to plug the hole and keep the tablet from falling out.

So, how do you effectively utilize this ingenious hack? First, you have to accept that this can be a very laborious way to fish. For one, the tablet chunks will need to be replaced as they dissolve. Secondly, this is not a method for rapidly covering water as retrieving the lure rapidly or erratically will outpace the bubbles and negate the effectiveness. So, this technique is best utilized when you are slowly and thoroughly working an area. For instance, when fish are finicky and you need a slight edge to convince them to take the bait. It is also effective when you are targeting a specific fish -– such as one you see on a bed — or working a very small area or piece of structure that you are pretty certain is holding fish that aren't biting.

You will also need to use a bit gentler cast so as not to propel out of the lure. I've found this to be a bigger issue with jigs as opposed to other hollow body lures. However, this trick is ideal for vertical fishing and can also be used to pitch baits to bass on beds or around structure. In these situations, I have found that a do-nothing retrieve is often the most effective –- basically, just let your lure sit on the bottom and give off bubbles, twitching it just enough to make it appear alive to any nearby fish.