Author, writer, marine artist, charter captain, lure manufacturer, ind. consultant
A very different way to chum sharks
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.
Baits are always fillets, unless we get a finicky mako, in which case we offer him a "bloodworm" (a bluefish or bunker would work), a butt hooked mac that has had its tail cut off at the nub. They vibrate insanely and squirt blood like hell and I have never had a mako refuse one. Most of the time the fillet gets eaten and we don't need the worm.
My pitch bait leaders with the fillets on them are not overly large (the fillets that is) and the nose is pierced by a fillet clip and the hook placed toward the rear of the fillet, again for fast hooking fish to be released, which all usually are. At the same time, the fillet pins get the hook down deep quickly on a fish that we want to kill. Fillets, as opposed to whole baits or huge ones, are a piece of cake to set a hook thru and it's a rare shark that refuses them.
If we tease up a blue shark, we ignore him. There are very few blues around here anymore, so we rarely get any up nowadays. If we do we simply cast the live teaser/s past them and the blues rarely ever bother them again, I guess because they stick with the source of the chum and don't range back where the teasers are swimming - even though we don't run them way back.
As stated at the top, we had huge numbers of blues out here before the finners wiped them out and I originally came up with this system so that we could almost entirely eliminate catching them and instead, catch nothing but makos and threshers. It worked and works. It is almost impossible to catch a blue this way if everything is done the way described here. Any boatside blues usually depart as a mako of any size comes to the boat chasing a bait. If any of them don't split, a hungry mako will beat them to the pitch bait every time, especially since it is alongside and can be pulled away from any blue shark crazy enough to get in front of a feeder mako (not many are, even the big ones, which wouldn't get big if they did that kind of crazy shit!)
I rarely just drift while I'm chumming. I power chum the vast majority of the time and especially when there is little wind or current. This allows me to work breaklines, canyon edges, high spots and to follow the twists and turns on current breaks, even to the extent of staying just on the side with the right water temps and bait. I don't worry about the chum slick. I think it follows the source no matter whether you are drifting or power chumming.
All of the above keeps us in the fish zones and that is a lot more productive than just letting wind and current decide where we are going to fish. It also allows me to "hover" over and around a concentration of bait and sharks and also make circles in those areas so that we stay on the fish and don't drift on past them, which a lot of traditional chummers do. Power chumming also allows me to have the props kicking out white water and vibrations as I go in and out of gear and that attracts sharks, no doubt in my mind.
This is a real proactive method of chumming that not only eliminates nuisance sharks (and maybe dogfish? Wouldn't that be nice? I don't know much about them (thank God!), but this technique might help eliminate them, although some modifications might be required - that's up to you east coast doggy victims to figure out) it ensures that a big fish is never hooked on a light outfit, or a little one hooked on a winch. It's a lot of fun and after a while you will have everybody wanting to handle the teaser rigs because it's so much fun feeling that bait get all fired up, then trying to get it back to the boat before it gets truly eaten.
The latter isn't as difficult as it sounds and if a cranked bait does get bit, it is usually a slash or tail rip if it's a mako and a smashola if it's a thresher, not a full-blown gobble down. Both species cripple their prey before they eat it. And even if granny is on the teaser rod and lets a shark get the bait, it isn't hooked or pricked or anything. Nothing happens to spook him. The shark will either complete the trip to the chum source or you can just pitch another bait back and he'll be on it in a heartbeat.
This is a really fun and very effective way of chumming for sharks and heck, even those after big blue sharks can use it and only bait the horses when they follow a teaser in, which believe me, they will do. As I suggested up top, this might even be a good way to avoid those dogfish that are driving everybody nuts back east. Live, smaller blues? Bunkers? Just about any live bait will do.
All of my chumming leaders are split mono/single strand. I use #12 or #13 wire, even on the biggest leaders. Heavier is fine if you prefer. Tackle ranges from a light, twelve pound outfit for dinks, thirties and fifties and an 80W or 130 monster rig. The teasers are mounted on Accurate 665's with forty pound test.
So there you have it, folks, or at least a good, basic explanation of a new way to chum for sharks. Those of you with open minds and a taste for new ways, plus a desire to only fish for and catch makos and threshers (unless you choose to catch some of those monster blues) should give this method a try. There are probably some modifications that would work better back where you fish, but the basic system works great and is a lot of fun.
Author, writer, marine artist, charter captain, lure manufacturer, ind. consultant
Shark chumming with Mickey, Minny & Ray The Rat
Don't listen to them mices and Ray The Rat.
Makos are apex predators and aren't afraid of anything but another mako, killer and sperm whales.
Boats and chum are magnets for them. Teasers make them come faster.
"I don't see them in the back of the slick, but I know that they are there." Huh? Yes, there are times when they are in the back of the slick...that's when they are on the way up it to the chum source and the teasers.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
