I use scent when finesse fishing… but I really don’t think of it as an attractant, but a bite longer additive.
I saw an article years ago, wish I could find it, talking about scented bait and attracts. It stated that unless it was pungent and was designed for like catfish and other fish where you dead stick or bobber type fishing. The “attracts don’t work per-say to attract as much as make them hold on a little longer to where you can detect the bite.
Your bait movement and color gains thier interest and attracts them, they come closer, maybe close enough to smell it, but once they bite it. The enzymes and taste make them hold on longer and try to swim away, that’s when we set the hook.
A bass, probably other fish too, can inhale your bait and spit it back out, in under 1/2 second. Heck that’s pretty fast, I probably wouldn’t even feel that, especially 30 ft out, and in water and grass and what not.
On baits that requires strikes, like jerk baits, crank baits, topwater, spoons and spinners. I don’t think it helps with the bite. Although, an angler on here said he felt it helped the bait move through the grasses better, I definitely don’t think it hurts your strike any.
Not that any of what I just said is right but that’s my theory .