Chumming for crappie at night

�If you chum crappie they will come"

Feeding the fish with food for the benefit of catching them. The saying �Cast breads upon the waters� The idea is to get the game fish to thinking there is free food, fooling them into thinking there is no hooks around. This concept works for the fishermen getting the fish to come to them, instead of searching the lake for them. Ration don�t overfeed.

Some preferred chumming items
Save your fish scales and freeze them into ice cubes (recommend do this in extra refrigerator). When you go fishing throw out couple cubes every so often. As the cubes melt the scales will reflect the your night night, and attract bait and game fish.

Egg shells frozen into cubes or just tossed on the waters will do the same, use a roller pin and crush them up super fine.

Minnows get 3-4 dozen and crush or grind them into a paste or very small titbits, use a pan to catch all the drippings.
Left over fish guts using the same procedure.

Canned oiled sardines using the above techniques.

Canned: cat food, dog food, canned corn, breakfast cereals, etc: the ideas are unlimited!

How to present the above:
A coffee can, nylon stocking, mesh bag, anything that has small holes so there is a steady stream of scent and drippings of blood and guts flowing into the waters. Take a weight to lower the above to varied depths until you start to catch fish.

Jarring for crappie:
This is a trick clear back to when glass was invented. Glass jar with bunch of holes in the lid. Add water and 6-12 minnows. Tie the neck with a strong cord and lower it to the depth you wish to fish. The commotion of the minnows trying to escaping and the noise of them bumping the inside of the jar, plus their scent escaping thru the vented lid is hard for crappie to resist.

Wicked combo:
Use the jarring method above with gold fish, can you image the gold fish scales flashing off your fishing light?

All the ideas of been proven by fishermen long long ago.

Check your local laws to ensure that it is legal in your state.

Author
Bob Spare

i have heard of a few of those.......thanks!

A hand full of corn meal on the every now and then works well too...

Good luck with that, I would think the cats & carp would love it. I haven't known anyone to do it with success on crappie.

there is a guy that chums out the crappie house I used to go to. not sure what he used, but worked pretty good.

actually they could have already been there anyways, but it didnt push them out of there, so I dont see any harm in trying.

It can attract minnows. It does work but the other fish wiil show up later.

If you take a dead minnow of you hook,use a small knife to scrap of the scales. Then wipe the scales on the minnow and toss it in the water.
I have done this before qwith good to fair results.

Best chum BRUSHPILES

+1

when i was a kid my dad and uncle would chum/ bait the hole with cotton seed meal.. it seemed to work.

but I agree with opus.. best chum is a well placed brush pile

I use dry dog food and spray it with crappie and panfish sence . works pretty good went the bite is slow ...

When I was young,my freinds dad would take us out at night and fish under lights.He would open this bucket and throw in a couple of cans of maggots"yuck" we always caught fish.
put a pack of bacon in a bucket, leave it open for a couple of days,cover the bucket till your brave enough to look and walaa,chum!!!!

a friend of mine used to take a hadful of white rice and chum it over his crappie hole,...the falling rice excites the crappie and turns on the bite,...

I've seen it done for catfish. Put some dry dog food in a 5 gallon bucket with water and allow it to sour in the heat. then dump it off the dock in a cove, throwing handfuls of dog food out to keep the cats feeding. Caught a lot of catfish at Cedar Creek that way. Definitely works.

I'm skeptical that chumming would work for crappie, but I'm interested to hear more stories.

it will absolutely work on catfish! Ive heard the rice trick but I've never tried it.

I use some cattle cubes to chum bait fish which will bring the crappie to the dinner plate. Night fishing under the lights in timber with a bag tied on the side of the boat release the cubes in small amounts.