Quote Originally Posted by jcb View Post
This may have absolutely nothing to do with it, but I have seen similar things happen and have been convinced that the "snakebit" person had something on his hands that left a bad scent on his baits. Gasoline, hand lotion, bug repellent etc.
Yes,this can and does occur.

My fishing buddy and I use spray on sunscreen and insect repellent to try and avoid this. My buddy had sprayed a generous amount of sunscreen onto the back of his hands and then dipped his hand into the minnow bucket to grab a bait. I couldn't holler "STOP" fast enough. We had two minnow buckets and I made him use the contaminated bucket while I used the "clean" bucket" After I caught my limit of crappie, I let him use the good bait. He didn't catch a thing with his contaminated minnows.