Need Some Help

[young2001]

I need some help from all you. A buddy of mine's mother's house caught on fire a few weeks back...they lost almost everything but thankfully no one was hurt. During the cleanup process he found his late father's old tackle boxes. His mother had given these to him a couple months after he passed but he never had the heart to go and pick it up.

Long story short, the tackle boxes were melted and some of the lures were destroyed, but besides skirts many are still intact but have smoke or resin caked on them. Is there a good cleaning solution to clean these off? I have heard that bass can be turned off by certain chemical smells so wasn't for sure what would be safe to use. Hot water didn't help much in cleaning off the smoke.

Thanks for any advice you can give. His father introduced him to fishing when he was little and it was their favorite passtime together. I know these lures meant a lot to him and would like to help him savage and use them if he can.

[lroberts]

Believe it or not, a read an article in In-Fisherman talking about scents and bass...it said that gasoline proved to have no ill effects on them....you might try it. The article said that deet (bug spray) was one of the worst to get on baits, along with sun screen.