Chum Up More Sharks!

Catching sharks is a ton of fun, and chumming is a great way to attract those toothy critters up close to your boat. I had the chance to fish with noted shark expert Capt. Mark Sampson (author of Modern Sharking, available on Amazon), and some of the finer points to chumming that he mentioned were quite illuminating. You want to catch more sharks? Check out these tips.

1. Forget all those stories about chumming with ground beef, pig blood, or chicken parts. When do you think the last time a shark saw any of that stuff was? Never! Stick with the tried-and-true goodies like ground bunker or other fish, which the sharks are actually hunting for. Give them what they want to eat, not what people like to eat.
2. As a general rule of thumb, pieces of tunas of all sorts work even better than cut baitfish for your baits. Parts that are usually discarded, like the rib cage and belly, work great. Bonito chunks work very well, too.
3. The trick to chumming effectively isn’t volume, it’s consistency. You don’t need a ton of chum in the water you just need it flowing nonstop so the sharks can follow the trail.
4. Spread your baits through the water column. Picture your chum slick like a fan, growing wider and wider (and deeper and deeper) as it moves away from the boat. You don’t know what depth the sharks will be at, so you’ll want some shallow baits set close to the boat, some mid-depth baits a bit farther back (floats come in handy for these lines), and some baits on bottom behind those. If any one part of the water column proves particularly good, then you can shift your spread of baits to focus on it.
5. On very calm days hang your chum bucket over the side on a tight leash. That way even the smallest movement of the boat will help disburse the chum.