Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
With Delmarva's offshore shark season now in full swing you can bet that there's a lot of fishermen standing watch over chum lines these days. Although sharks are sometimes caught without the use of chum, it's a rare occurrence that anyone would head out intending to hook one of the critters without the aid of something that will help produce a scent trail to attract the sharks. Chumming techniques might vary from port to port and from boat to boat, but they all have the same goal of bringing sharks in close to the boat, and as I emphasized in my book "Modern Sharking", when chumming for sharks the idea is to attract sharks to the baits, not to feed them before they get there. While I don't imagine too many anglers will argue with that statement, I find it interesting that most anglers still practice the "more is better" approach to chumming for sharks.
This really came to light the other day when I was reviewing a website for an annual shark tournament that's held in July a few states to the north. The tournament directors noted that the local tackle shop was taking advance orders for bait and chum. They went on to recommend how much bait and chum each team should expect to use during each of their fishing days. I was shocked to see that they recommended that anglers take four buckets of chum and two flats of mackerel for each day of fishing! Considering that the fishing conditions and species of sharks up there are not much different from what we have off Delmarva in June, I figure that's more than five times the amount of chum needed for a full day of sharking. As far as I'm concerned, using four buckets of chum in a day is not only a waste of money, it's also counter productive to the efforts of hooking a shark because more is not better when it comes to attracting sharks. Remember, the goal is to attract, not feed!
We all know that God gave sharks an incredible sense of smell; in fact, their olfactory system is so good that just a trickle of scent carried in the current will get their attention and have them headed to the source. It's simply not necessary to overdo it with a cloud of chum and fish chunks drifting from the boat. Don't get me wrong, I know that anglers who chum heavily still hook their share of sharks, but after years of experimenting with different chumming techniques I've concluded for a couple reasons that modest chumming is more effective than heavy chumming. For one thing, too much chum and chunks added to the water might actually feed the sharks and give them no reason to come in and take a hooked bait. Anglers shouldn't be duped into believing that sharks are "bottomless pits" that will continue to eat as long as there is food available. If a shark gets filled up on free baits that are being tossed overboard it can get finicky and not be inclined to touch a hooked bait.
Another problem with heavy chumming is that it will allow baitfish the opportunity to hold way back in the chum line and feed. While this might not seem important, if you imagine a shark wandering its way up a chum line only to encounter a feeding frenzy of baitfish 300 yards from the boat. I wonder if that shark would still be inclined to swim past the baitfish and on to the boat, or would it stop short and stay where all the activity is? Personally, I want all the action as close to the boat as possible so I'll chum light and tease the baitfish and sharks with just enough scent and taste in the water to bring them in close. The only thing that should be in the water are hooked baits and a modest path of finely ground chum that teases the sharks with the promise of a meal at the end of the trail.
I know that most shark fishermen will think I'm full of "hot air" but after a lot of trial and error we've developed a chumming technique that allows us to lay out a chum line that successfully brings in sharks while using as little as three gallons of chum over a 7 to 8 hour period. Here's how it works: We start by freezing our chum in 1-gallon Zip-Lock bags. When preparing for a trip we bring out enough bags to get us through as many hours as we plan to fish, along with maybe one extra bag in case we stay longer than expected. These bags are kept in a cooler so they stay frozen until needed. A 5-gallon bucket with a quarter-size hole in the lid is all we use for a chum dispenser (forget the milk crate). Air trapped in the bottom of the bucket keeps it floating upside-down and the chum flowing properly. Chum sold in local tackle shops usually comes frozen in 4-5 gallon buckets. If purchased ahead of time, this chum can be thawed, scooped into one-gallon bags, and then refrozen.
I know that this method of light chumming is a departure from what most anglers do when they're trying to catch sharks, but after years of experimenting with different chumming techniques I can say with great certainty that it's the best method to bring in sharks without feeding them along the way or wasting a lot of chum and money in the process.
Mark Sampson is author of “Modern Sharking” and Captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
