Using Ivory Soap as Fish Bait

Ivory soap has been used for generations as a way to inexpensively lure and catch fish. This brand of soap has worked well over the years because it is a cheap, readily available resource that has proved attractive to fish. Ivory soap is made in part from animal fat, making its scent irresistible to some species of fish such as catfish.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Ivory Soap Bar

1. Use an Ivory soap bar to catch a fish--not liquid Ivory. The liquid will not stay in one area the way that a bar of soap will. A bar may crumble a little and pieces of it may drift away, but that can actually help fish to find the bar more easily. As the fish smell the soap and the animal fat that is contained in it, they will come closer to investigate and may just take a bite while they’re near it.

2. Cut a small chunk of Ivory soap that will fit onto the end of a hook. When putting the soap on the hook, proceed slowly or you may break the soap in half. If you find it too difficult to get the soap to go onto a hook without splitting open, try the soap-cooking method.

3. Shave off small portions of a few bars of Ivory soap. Collect all of those shavings in a cooking pot. Heat up the soap until it melts. Then, pour the melted soap onto a flat surface like a cookie sheet. Once the soap has cooled it will be harder than it was in the original bar. This soap can be easily cut into small squares. Use those soap squares to bait the hook.

Tips & Warnings

• Ivory soap is well known to attract catfish, but there are other species that it may attract as well. The soap is not considered attractive to gar, so fishermen who are looking to repel gar may do well with Ivory soap bait.