Chumming?

[Seanstone]

Whats everyones opinions on chumming for catfish? I have read articles where people use fermented Milo beans, chicken blood, ground bait fish, etc. to chum for channels. I have also read that it is frowned upon by many tournament anglers and banned in some places.

I have only one experience with chumming, and it seemed to be quite productive. We caught some shad in a throw net and went fishing out on the boat, we anchored near a submerged creek channel and tossed out for flatheads. Amanda started tossing dead shad over the boat and fishing a dead shad right under the boat. She had instant success, and ended up catching a few over 5 pounds in an hour or so. We haven't tried it since then.

Since I am asking your opinions I'll share mine. I believe that chumming is a great way to catch fish quickly. It might be a good way to put your little kids on some quality fish, or your wife even. With that being said I believe that it can be detrimental to the population if the fish caught are kept and not released. I don't think it should be allowed in any tournament for the advantages that it gives some.

What do you think?

[Smoothkip]

I've never tried it Sean but it makes sense. I have heard of guys throwing deer remains in the water and after a few days will draw maggots. Then in turn will attract smaller bait fish and the bigger fish will follow. This is illegal to throw carcasses in but the blood and other stuff would work the same way I imagine.

[NorthportTroller]

When I catfish with livers I squeeze one in my hand and throw out across the water to stir up a bite. And dripping blood out of the container as it get's emptier too here and there.

[katfish]

Sean
I imagine chumming with grain would attract tons of carp

I have seen boyz freeze chopped shad and water in milk jugs.
Then during the day they hang a jug on limbs on each end of
the fishing area. Punch holes in the jug and let the melting
chum drip in the water all day. In evening they come out
with fresh cut shad and the channel cats have gatherred
looking for shad and are ready.

The lakes I fish have so many channel cats that I can't
imagine enough fishing pressure to put a dent in the
population. The more we catch the greater next
years recruitment will be.

In mid June I can put the grandkids on channel cats faster than
I can unhook and rebait. The aggressive prespawn males
attack any food item we toss.

We actually have to use larger flathead baits to
prevent aggressive forktails from taking them.

[Seanstone]

;D Carp are a whole different ball game. We hardly fish for them without chumming first. We use corn, oats, Wheaties, etc. Just toss it out and wait a half an hour. Now that I think about it, we have caught channel cats when carp fishing with corn. Never even crossed my mind, until just now.

We actually have to use larger flathead baits to
prevent aggressive forktails from taking them.

We have a spot that produces nice channels every year early June. Its in between a set of docks at a local lake, we had thought that they used it as a spawning site. We found it initially by flathead fishing, the channels starting taking hand sized bluegills.

[jason454ci]

Never tried chumming myself. But I have fished where they were loading grain barges on the bigger rivers. Caught alot of channels off of them. Also caught some decent blues off of them too. I think the blues were there feeding on the abundance of shad.