How to Make Free Fish Chum
Try using fish chum on your next fishing trip. The key is to use it at the right place and time. It has to be fresh or all that will turn up will be trash fish, sharks and crabs. Chum, when used properly, will definitely increase your catch in the bays and surf of the Gulf Coast.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
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1
Obtain the raw material (pun intended). If you have just cleaned some fish, use what you aren't going to eat that can be ground up in a blender. Other excellent sources are mullet or shad that you have caught with your throw net. Bait fish caught in a bait trap or fresh shrimp heads also are excellent.
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2
Chop up your chum material and place it in the blender with just enough bay or surf water to grind everything. Use the coarse grind setting. Put the mixture in small plastic freezer bags and freeze immediately. Make as much as possible as it can take you a long time to clean up the blender.
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3
Go fishing. The trick is to not waste your chum until the odds are good that game fish are around. If the fish are schooling and in a feeding frenzy, you don't need it. Wait until you have caught one game fish, then use a bag of chum. You can tear off the freezer bag and put the frozen chum in you bait trap and hang it about halfway between the surface and the bottom. Another method is to have it almost thawed and sprinkle it around your boat or dock. It helps to splash the water a little. The sound enhances the attraction.
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4
Keep in mind that the chum must be fresh. If you have access to a pier with electricity, you can grind up your chum and throw it directly into the water. Fresh chum attracts all game fish to one degree or another. The idea it to make them go into a feeding frenzy. The same thing happens when they are tearing up a school of shrimp, mullet or shad, and bits and pieces are all around in the water.
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1
Tips & Warnings
Do not buy processed chum or processed fish oils. Cooking and boiling fish parts takes whatever attracts game fish out of the equation and assures you trash fish.
Do not use chum if you are wade fishing.
