I've received a lot of emails and PMs asking me about how I chum for sharks, so I decided to answer here. As usual, I will probably curl some hair and get some folks fired up and thinking that I'm crazy. That can't be avoided, so with apologies in advance to those who think that I'm some kind of whacko, here is how I have chummed for sharks for years. The story of this technique will appear in a major mag, but probably not until next year, so here is a preview. It's all in The Shark Chummer's Bible, the first printing of which was back in 1993, so one thing you can be certain of…I have been chumming this way for nearly fifteen years and the fact of the matter is, it's more like twenty. This works and is a barrel of fun to boot.
I developed this method because of the vast number of blue sharks that abounded in Southern California waters years back. We were plugged with them and considered them unwanted pests, but with the traditional "blind" chumming techniques with hook baits in the water where you couldn't see them you had no control over what kind of sharks you caught, and so blue sharks drove us nuts. Also, like now, we had a wide size range of makos and some big threshers around. This resulted in not only not knowing what kind of shark we were going to hook, but also whether it was a small, medium, or big one. Because of all of that, we had to fish heavy gear to ensure that we could handle the big fish that fought their way thru the blues. This ruined the sport on all but the biggest sharks. I make no bones about it; to this day I would just as soon not bother with beating up and getting beaten up by bunches of blue sharks and instead, spend the time and put all of my efforts into catching the game sharks.
If you are a blue shark fan, I am not intending to belittle you or the fish; I am merely stating my own personal preferences and those of a lot of other sharkers who I know. Blues can be a lot of fun, especially on lighter gear, but time taken messing with them can easily cost fishermen a shot at a nice mako or thresher. That is enough for me. If that makes me a mako and thresher snob, then I guess I am!
It starts with the leaders and tackle and a non-drifting technique. I make all sorts of leader sizes because I am a bait and switch chummer. I am also convinced that power chumming increases my shark catchs dramatically. No blind baits, even on the downrigger. Until we have a mako or thresher alongside, any baits that go in the water are hookless and fished as teasers only.
I make a special clip for attaching the teaser baits to short wire leaders with likewise short and fairly light upper leaders for ease in casting and putting teasers in the boat easily and fast when retrieved with a shark after them. Live is preferred and only one or maybe two if one is fished off the downrigger. I have found that a mako or thresher that comes up the slick will find a single live teaser nine times out of ten. More teasers create additional distractions that simply are not needed and that can result in tangles and short stopped fish.
The teaser rods are best held in anglers' hands because it is important to get the sharks coming to the boat as soon as the baits get excited - and this is easy to detect - fun too - and ideally, before they get bit. If they do get bit, if it's a mako they invariably bite off the tail and if it's a thresher, they usually whack the hell out of the bait. Neither fish will allow a bait that he thinks he has killed or injured to "escape". The shark, regardless of what kind or size, shows with the teaser, every time, usually all fired up and loaded for bear. The teaser is (carefully in the case of makos - you know why) removed and the appropriate size hook, leader, bait and outfit is used to bait the fish. I make different leader lengths and sizes for each line class outfit I have onboard, right down to the one very light outfit for dink makos. They are racked up and standing by in rod holders or rocket launchers within easy reach.
One important advantage here is that we have a visual on every shark that we hook and this allows us to mouth hook any smaller or even bigger makos that we are going to release and to tease a thresher into biting, which is sometimes the case with them. The threshers also run off any blues that hang around when they show up on a teaser and I have actually seen them whack a blue with their tails on several occasions before turning on the bait. Most of the blue sharks usually beat feet when a hungry, aggressive thresher shows up.
