I use the Berkeley Crappie nibbles these days. Chartruse color. In the past I used "Dr Juice" attractant. Let me tell you this. Dr Juice and Crappie Nibbles work. I put some of the Dr Juice on my plastic worms and it helped me catch a LOT MORE FISH. Without the Dr Juice the fish didn't bite but with Dr Juice (Bass Attractor type) I caught many bass.
The Berkeley Crappie Nibbles win Crappie USA tournaments at Patoka Lake. The top winner in the spring of 1992 and 1993 was fishing with jigs and crappie nibbles. He competed against the locals and teams from 8 different states and won the spring tournament at Patoka Lake. In other words he outfished the guys using minnows two years in a row. That was enough to make me start using them after he gave me a half used jar when I met him prefishing the lake in April 2003. I have never been without a jar of crappie Nibbles since that day when I am crappie fishing or fishing for panfish. They just work that well. In fact I have three jars in my tackle box as backup to other two jars that are in a storage box in my boat where I can reach them instantly. I keep a jar in my life jackets pocket and usually have about 15 of them laying on my deck ready to use. I like to let them dry out in the sun for a few minutes so that the skins toughen up as that makes them stay on the hook longer. They work
Another thing that I read about is the Kodiac Paste Product.
Fish have a lot of their brain devoted to the sense of smell. If you look at a fish's brain or a drawing of the fish's brain the lobes devoted to the sense of smell are huge. That tells me something. It's know that sharks can smell a blood trail and follow it from miles away in the ocean. I feel that fish can also smell food and home in on it. I also belive that artifical smells such as Gasoline on your hands or even tobacco smoke residue on your fingers can be transferred to the baits and turn the fish off maybe. I know that gasoline is not good and turns the fish off. Some say that christmas trees put off a turpine chemical and make the fish shy away from them until the chemicals have all diffused out of the wood.
Dr Juice worked on the principle of Fear Pheremones. The theory goes like this. Fish (minnows) put off a chemical into the water when they get scared. I know that humans excrete adrenaline into the blood when they get scared. How knows but maybe the fish's adrenaline is somehow absorbed into the water from their skin and the predators can pick up this chemical. The theory goes that a neutral mood predator fish can be made to turn on and feed agressively when he smells the fear pheremones from the scared minows. Dr Juice has isolated that fear pheremone smell and put it in his fish attractant. It may be just a ploy to sell the stuff to fishermen but I belive it the theory and think that it helps me catch more bass on my plastic worms.
And I would swear on a bible that Crappie Nibbles work and help me catch more crappie. I can even tell when the crappie nibble is no longer on my hook. As soon as I don't get a bite in a few minutes I know that the nibble is gone. I put the nibble back on an I start getting bites and catching fish again. They work that well. But first you have to be where the fish are. It won't work if there are no fish around. Nothing will work when the fish are not there. So you must find the fish first to determine if these attractants will work or not.
I have been using the Crappie nibbles since the spring of 2003 and swear by them. They are a lot cheaper than buying minnows IMHO and I dont' have to get my hands wet when it's cold outside as I am not putting wet minnows on the hooks.
Disclaminer: There are many times though that a live minnow is the only thing that the fish want. And most of the time the minnow will outfish the crappie nibbles from what I have seen. I just hate to mess with minnows most of the time. Which is why I like the Crappie nibbles and jigs