Chapter 7 - The Deadly Art Of Chumming

The basic idea behind chumming is to encourage fish to eat something with no hooks attached in the hope that they will later take something with a hook. Chumming also attracts fish in large numbers to a certain spot. Instead of the angler moving about in search of fish, he can stay in one spot and wait for the fish to come to him. Mainly, however, the idea is to fool the fish with a free handout and dispel his suspicions so that he will more readily take a baited hook.

Various methods and techniques are used in chumming, and the angler who knows and practices them will often catch fish when ordinary casting or trolling methods fail to produce. You'll find a long list of game fish and bottom fish which respond to chumming like a gang of hungry ranch hands to a dinner bell. In fact, to catch certain fish chumming is almost a must.

Take the giant tuna, for example. Although a few big fish are caught by trolling or drifting with whole fish baits, the great majority of tuna fishermen depend on chumming to get results. They use ground menhaden or mossbunker, called "bunker" for short. This flat, deep bodied fish, which averages about a foot in length, is seined commercially for its oil. Millions of pounds are caught annually. And each year more and more of these fish are being diverted for use in chumming. In three days, the U. S. Atlantic Tuna Tournament has been known to use up 85,000 lbs. of bunker chum.

Menhaden or bunker can now be bought fresh, iced or frozen, either by the bushel or in cans or blocks. Whole bunker are sold by the bushel and must be ground by the angler. Those sold in cans or frozen in blocks are already ground and ready to use. The usual method of chumming begins with the acquisition of a big container, such as a garbage can, filled with sea water. The ground mossbunker is then added and the whole mess is stirred around until it is the consistency of a thick soup. Then one or two anglers start ladling the stuff over the side of the boat in order to form a chum slick. In this slick, the oil spreads in a broad band on the surface of the water and extends for several hundred feet behind the boat. The particles of bunker sink to varying depths under the chum slick. Tuna and other fish get the scent of the oil and juices and follow it up to the boat.

Most tuna fishermen also get whole bunker and cut them into big chunks, which they toss overboard into the chum slick as an added attraction. Butterfish, mackerel, herring and whiting can also be cut up and thrown out. This gives the tuna something to swallow and holds their interest.

Next, of course, you bait up a big tuna hook with a whole bunker, herring, mackerel, butterfish or whiting and let it drift out naturally in the chum line. Finally you hope a big tuna will take it.

Another method of chumming for tuna is practiced at Wedgeport, Nova Scotia. Here, instead of ground chum, they use whole herring. These are tossed out into the water in the tide behind the boat. The fishermen also make up a "teaser" or "grapevine" consisting of a dozen or so herring tied about a foot apart on a cord. These are trailed behind the boat, where the tuna are attracted by the splash and ripples the herring make on the surface. To the fish it looks like a school of bait fish, and they will often come up and grab a herring from the teaser. In the meantime, the angler lets out a hook with another herring on it and hopes a tuna will come up and swallow it.

Anglers seeking giant tuna usually chum with herring or bunkers. This one was caught at Wedge port, Nova Scotia.

Whole bait fish are also used on the "live-bait" boats which leave from many ports in Southern California. These boats are equipped with big bait tanks, where sardines and anchovies can be kept alive. The live bait fish are thrown into the water a few at a time. This brings around such game fish as tuna, yellowtail, albacore, bonito and barracuda. When a fish is hooked or seen swirling behind the boat, the anglers put a live anchovy or sardine on a hook, cast it out and let it swim around in the water. In this type of fishing, it is important to use small hooks and fine leaders in order to fool the fish.

When it comes to catching bluefish, chumming is by far the most effective and productive method. Here, too, ground menhaden or bunker is used, and from June to October tons of chum are dumped into the water along the Atlantic Coast to attract blues. This chumming is mostly done off the coasts of New York and New Jersey. On a weekend you'll often see a fleet of several hundred boats all chumming for bluefish. And the fishing is not only done during the daytime but continues into the night. During the day the boats usually drift with the tide and wind while dispensing the chum. At night they usually anchor. However, if the tide or wind is too strong, anchoring is the best procedure, day or night.

When chumming for bluefish a chunk of butterfish or bunker is generally used on a hook and this is let out in the chum slick with the tide. In the beginning you may have to let out up to 150 ft. of line to get a strike from a bluefish. But as the fish work into the chum slick they come closer and closer to the boat. If they are really feeding in the chum they will often come close to the top. Then you will get your strikes soon after the bait is dropped into the water. However, when the tide is strong or when the fish are deep you may have to add a clincher sinker on the leader to get the bait down to where the fish are feeding. Also, if you have to get the bait down deep, let out plenty of slack line from the reel.

Chumming  is  widely  practiced  in   catching  bluefi.sh   like these, but it is also effective for many other salt-water species.

If a bluefish takes the bait, the line will run off the reel rapidly. That's why the reel should be set in free-spool and held lightly with the thumb. When a fish picks up the bait, let him run for a few seconds, then throw the drag on and set the hook.

During August and September along the Atlantic Coast, when you are chumming for bluefish, you'll often notice false albacore and bonito feeding on the chum. They will often take a hook baited with a piece of bunker or butter-fish, but they are more shy of hooks and leaders than blues and consequently harder to hook. When they show up in the chum we usually put the heavier bluefish rod aside, take out a light salt-water spinning outfit and go after them with that. We attach a small white or yellow buck tail jig to the end of the 8-lb. test line. Then we cast out into the chum slick and as the jig sinks we jerk it sharply and then let it drop back again. We continue doing this until we get a strike.

I remember one day when both bluefish and bonito showed up in the chum slick and started feeding on top. We used small surface popping plugs, and after the cast we worked them through the chum slick toward the boat. Talk about action! On almost every cast the bluefish or bonito would swirl behind the plug, and every so often one would take it. This is real sport on a light spin outfit, and it was chumming that made it possible to bring the fish up to the boat and get them into a feeding mood.

Another popular game fish which is often caught by chumming is the northern weakfish or squeteague. The chum usually used here is small grass shrimp. These tiny, translucent shrimp can be bought by the quart from bait dealers and boat liveries in the popular weakfish areas in New Jersey, New York and New England. However, using them is expensive since you'll need anywhere from 4 to 8 qts. for a day's fishing. So many weak fishermen try to catch their own shrimp in tidal bays and creeks. A seine with a fine mesh can be used for this.

Chumming for weakfish with grass shrimp is also done from an anchored boat in a channel or deep hole. It is most effective when there's a moderate tide or current running. At first you throw out a few shrimp at a time to start things going. Then, when the fish appear in the chum streak, you can cut it down to two or three shrimp at a throw, but you must work steadily without prolonged breaks. In this type of fishing you use a light spinning rod or a bait-casting rod and rig a small No. 1 or 2 hook on a long nylon leader. Then you bait it with a whole sandworm or two or more small grass shrimp, after which you pull line off the reel and let the baited hook drift naturally in the chum streak. After letting the line out about 150 ft. you reel it in again and then lit it drift out again. The weakfish will usually come to the top and take the hook.

However, when the fish are in very deep water or when the tide is slack, fishing near the bottom is often more effective. Here you fish with a sinker and a hook on a long leader tied about 3 or 4 ft. above the sinker. On slack water you can try chumming with grass shrimp, but first squeeze or pinch the shrimp so that they will sink instead of swim away. Besides shrimp, you can also use squid for chum when weak-fishing. You'll need several pounds and it must be diced into small pieces. Strips of the squid make a good bait for weakfish when you are fishing on the bottom.

The same grass shrimp can also be used to attract the smaller striped bass found in inlets, bays and creeks. This method is used in Chesapeake Bay, but it will also work in most bay waters where stripers are found.

Chumming for the larger striped bass found in the surf was widely practiced at one time. The early striped-bass fishing clubs and private bass stands at Martha's Vineyard and Cuttyhunk in Massachusetts and along the Rhode Island coast were scenes for this type of fishing. Here they used to hire a man who would chum for several hours or even all night before the fishermen arrived. The chummer used menhaden, which was also used for bait. They also used lobster tails for striped-bass bait, but then lobsters were cheap in those days, small ones selling for $1.50 per hundred.

Today chumming for striped bass in the surf is only done on rare occasions. It is hard work and the menhaden aren't as cheap as they used to be. Also, with more surf anglers than ever fishing, chummers have little privacy. It can be discouraging to chum all night or all day and then have other anglers fish a couple of hundred feet below you and catch striped bass which you attracted to the area. But that's a risk you take today no matter what kind of chumming you do. The waters are so crowded that it is a common thing to see your chum slick spoiled by boats cutting across it. Other wiseacres will anchor just below your boat and fish in your chum slick.

Chumming is a sure-fire method when fishing for sharks. These fish depend a great deal on their sense of smell to locate their food. So they'll soon come around if you start chumming. Here, too, the usual chum is ground menhaden, which is dispensed freely while drifting at night. Every so often a small fish or two can be tossed overboard to drift down the chum streak. If you can get a couple of buckets of beef blood you can also use this as chum. In fact, the blood of almost any fish or animal will attract sharks. You can also cut open a fish or two and suspend them alongside of the boat. The bloodier kinds of fish, such as tuna, albacore and bonito, are best for this. Chunks of these fish or small ones also make good bait for sharks.

In recent years fishermen have also discovered that mackerel, especially the common Atlantic variety, can be brought up to a boat with menhaden chum. Then they will take artificial lures, such as small spoons, metal squids and diamond jigs, under the boat.

Both summer flounder or fluke and winter flounder are attracted by chum. The angler who chums for these fish usually makes better catches than those who don't. I remember on several occasions chumming for bluefish with ground bunker when I'd hook fluke, which would take the bunker or butterfish bait on the hook if it sank deep enough. At such times you can change to a bottom rig and catch more fluke if you want to.

When fishing for smaller winter flounder, it's a good idea to bring along a bushel of mussels. You can crack the shell on these or mash them up and scatter them around the anchored boat. Another gimmick is to fill a mesh bag with cracked mussels and lower it over the side to the bottom. Some anglers make or buy special chum pots which are small wire cages and fill them with cracked mussels. Clams, oysters and scallops can also be used with or instead of the mussels. You may have to put a rock or some other weight into the bag or chum pot to sink it to the bottom in a fast current. Every so often you should bounce the bag or chum pot on the bottom to release the juices and fragments of meat in the surrounding water.

Many other bottom fishes, such as codfish, porgies, sea bass, sheep’s head, blackfish or tautog, snappers and groupers can be chummed. In fact, the most successful cod fishermen and black fishermen in certain areas bait a spot for a day or two before fishing. They scatter cracked clams and mussels to bring the fish around.

In clear tropical waters such as those around Florida, Bermuda and the Bahamas, you can see the fish respond to your chum. Larger fish such as mullet or needlefish can be cut up into small pieces and thrown overboard. Smaller bait fish can be used whole, dead or alive, as chum. Spiny lobsters, shrimp heads, crushed crabs and diced conch can also be used. As these are scattered in the water you'll see fish of all kinds rising from the coral reefs for the tidbits. Then a hook baited with small bait fish, shrimp or pieces of mullet can be lowered to the waiting fish.

Chumming isn't a lazy man's game, and it is best done with two or three anglers taking turns so that one man can rest and get a chance to fish. But as far as results are concerned it is well worth the trouble. On certain days it may mean the difference between catching fish or going home with no fish. So to be assured of sport and fun the next time you go fishing try the deadly art of chumming.

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