I buy my jigheads and skirts separate and mix and match different colors. Been buying the Boss brand of skirts and I've always been happy with them. Got a shipment last week and most of the packets of 5 skirts are good but
several have a strong chemical smell.

Don't know if I should try some scent of these or just call it a loss and throw them out. Don't want to
fish with a skirt that may cost me bites. Anybody else run into this?

I had a bunch of black angel jigs that had a strong odor of rubber/petroleum. Didn't seem to bother the fish any.

It probably doesn't matter. If the scent is water soluble, maybe it does. I let the stinky skirts sit and air out for a couple weeks when I get them. That usually clears them up quite a bit.

I've had this happen on quite a few jigs and spinnerbaits of mine. Usually after a few casts it gets better and doesn't smell as strong. If it's still really strong after about 15-20 casts, spray it with garlic scent. Hope this helps.

This^

Try checking out Donald Harper's info in the tackle section. He has some awesome scents for specific baits.
He tells a story about fishing with an old man back in the 70's, He would take this old fella fishing with him and the guy would show up with a minnow bucket. Not for using, but his baits would be soaking in the minnow bucket in order to get the scent on his lures. Any how, the the old man would out catch him 4 to 1 everytime. Donald likes to use living rubber skirts and store them in air tight packages that have been treated with his minnow extract oils. Donald has won more money bass fishing than some people make in a life time at their regular jobs - fishing tournaments. Check him out and his scents, you won't be disappointed.

If I order any jigs from smaller
companies they all smell that way. The
bass don't seem to mind.

I call them the stanky leg

You want see a whole lot of difference in catching. What you don't want on there is the human order and any scent you can use will help both of your problems. Silicon just want hold scent for a long period of time so I recommend keep spray them down every hour so it is leaving that trail in the water and masking your human scent.

In caring for your skirts make sure they are try from water and excess oils before storing them away in the page binder which will keep skirts of all kinds for years. Always be faithful to put Baby Power on them before sealing them up in the binder. This is a lot of trouble and one of the reasons most use Silicon skirts instead of my living rubber skirts. You just have to take care of business if you want anything to last a long time. I have skirts that are 30 years old and they are still in great shape. My skirts have that minnow smell for spinner baits and Crayfish for the jig skirts.

Watch me nay-nay....

I wouldn't worry about, ALL my baits smell like gas from being in my Champ, and it still does not affect my
fishing one bit........I still don't catch anything