I get a ton of questions on chumming, baiting a hole and making chum and this has always been a popular topic among anglers.
If you talk to some of the “purists” they make look down on this because it has tendency to draw in fish and you typically will catch smaller fish (also commonly called “box” fish).
I have written several articles about this in the past, one here on whiskerkitty.com, another on whiskerkitty.com and one here on txcatfishguide.com.
For this article I am going to focus more on what chumming is, and in future articles I will go into more detail about different types of chum, how to make it, and how to chum . I will also go into further detail about baiting a hole.
My opinion about this has changed over the years as most everything that I do with fishing has and I have worked to constantly grow and develop the best techniques for making catfish chum and for.
If you want to catch blues, this technique is not going to do you much good at all. You may catch and occasional blue catfish using soured grain but it is really more geared towards channel catfish and not something that will draw in big numbers of blue catfish. There are some techniques that will work for blue catfish but we will cover those in a future article.
This is also not something that is effective for flathead catfish. Once you learn more on fishing for flatheads, you will come to understand why this is the case, and we will cover more on this in the future on LearnToCatchCatfish.com.
All of this being said, if you want to catch a boat load of eating sized fish, then this is a technique that can be highly effective during many times of the year, but it is particularly effective during the warmer months.
First lets talk about what chumming means. The dictionary defines it as:
Def: to fish by attracting fish by dumping cut or ground bait into the water.
Obviously using chum to attract fish is something that is very popular in saltwater fishing. Most saltwater anglers chum by using some sort of fish or fish oils to chum for fish (remember Jaws).
(Whomever wrote this definition for the dictionary was obviously not a cat fish angler).
Chums are typically made from grain or some sort of soured grain. Soured grains are very popular throughout the south and are probably the most common form of catfish chum. The most popular forms of grains to sour for catfish chum are milo, wheat and hen scratch.
Another very popular form of chum was cottonseed cakes, which are very difficult to find these days due to changes in manufacturing process, and have been replaced for the most part with range cubes.
Whether ready to use (like range cubes) or some sort of soured grain are then taken and thrown into the water, when the chum hits the water is puts a scent in the water and some tiny sources of food to attract the fish (and bait fish) and get the catfish moving around in the water and searching for more food. The result is that you have concentrated the fish into a smaller area creating a greater chance of catching catfish.
Chumming for catfish is a different process than what many anglers refer to as “baiting a hole” , but baiting a hole and chumming are often spoken of as the same thing. Baiting a hole for catfish is however completely and totally different than chumming for catfish. We will cover the processes of chumming and baiting a hole in future articles.
I typically will use chum in the warmer months. There are certain times of the year when it will not do you a lick of good and times of the year when it makes a huge difference. Just experiment and see what works best for you in your area. As a general rule I don’t break out the chum until about mid Summer.
Again, effective, great for catching good numbers of eating sized fish.
In the coming weeks we will be adding more articles about chumming. For now you can read, how to make soured what chum, and also check out a video here.
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Sound Off: Have you ever chummed for catfish? What would you like to know about this?
