This reminds me of the urban legends regarding lobster bait. Some old timers swore up and down that a brick soaked in kerosene, or a used oil filter would catch lobsters like crazy. Supposedly the oil attracted them.
I don't know about that since I never tried it. Tried a bunch of other things like road kill, cowhide, stinky cheese (once), cat food by punching holes in the tin cans, plus putting empty coca cola cans in a trap, kinda like a rattle in a lure, I'd guess.
Road kill was a mess. Once in a while it would attract a lobster, but the road kill was messy as heck. It would gradually decompose to a slimy mess. Cowhide softened and swelled, but it was ineffective. It did withstand the onslaught of sand fleas very well. The coke cans? No noticable difference compared to the canless traps.
Cat food worked but made for very expensive bait. Too expensive to use unless it produced a dramatic increase in catch rates. The cheese however was an unqualified success. The next time we hauled the cheese baited trap we took over ten pounds of lobsters out of it. But, one trap does not a scientific study make. No doubt it would have worked well as bait, but would have been cost prohibitive.
There was an old gent that used to hang around the dock who sprayed his elbows, knees, and hands with WD40, and his bald head. He was convinced that it was good for his joints. His moniker was Bippy. When he'd start telling his WD40 stories, we'd call him Dippy. He was a good natured guy and took it all with a smile and a laugh.
