Are flavours key to catching bass on lures

Does flavouring your lures make any difference..? While I remain seriously sceptical on this front, people say it does.

"They've come in for a bit and now they've been and gone and went again," one veteran bass angler told me today. "That's 'cause the sea's still right cold that is, that's still taters when that should have started getting warm by now..."

Meanwhile, rubber lures now list scent among their selling point. The ones I bought today smell a bit like the inside of your car when you've gone through the full monty £15 inside and outside job at the Hand Car Wash at the garage next to the chinese takeaway on the Heacham bypass.

Does a fish honestly smell this..? Does it think OK, I'll hit that bit of plastic because it carries the unmistakable mixture of whatever they clean your car's upholstery with, along with a tantalising hint of egg-fried rice and chicken chop suey..?

I doubt it somehow. As in I doubt whether the fish can tell the difference between chop suey and the Number Nine egg-fried special rice, with mushroom and extra prawns.

How on earth does a bass smell something in the sea, as you drag a lure past it..?

I'll buy a bottle, just in case. But...