Chuming For Striper

[Feathers and Fins]

First check your area regulation before doing it. But where legal this is one of the best methods to catch stripers. Remember they are an oceanic fish and chumming has been used for years in turning on and even keeping a bite prolonged for hours even.

First tip is to find the Bait and be sure it is where you can access it easily throughout the day. After doing that locate the stripers. This can be done one of several different ways, Catching one is always a good way but you can use your depth finder as well. I prefer to use my depth finder to locate them. Knowing the fish is a good way to do it and learning what their marks typically look like on a graph is a must and takes time.

Something to remember is stripers will never be far from their favorite food source (shad) second thing is when they have located their prey they like to lock it up, by this I mean they will force it into the backs of creaks or cuts and hold it there. The bait knows where the stripers are and will go in shallow and ball up for safety. I have seen this behavior so many times over so many years I firmly believe it to be part of the stripers feeding technique. Stripers do not like light and will hold deep or in shade during the day so the shad go shallow and take advantage of this behavior IMO based on the years of chasing them. It is also well documented shad go to the shallows in the evenings as well for greater security.

Knowing that you will start off by looking for stripers in shaded areas or deeper water on clear days but they also form a line! A line blocking the bait into the back of coves or cuts, you can actually see this line on your graphs at times. Other times you will see stripers attack the bait as it tries to exit the coves and cuts. This is obvious by the top water attack repeatedly coming up in the same location or same area but within the line I talked about earlier.

Knowing about this behavior will help you find the bait and stripers, but primarily the bait. After this is done you will want to go past the guards and start looking for the large schools of stripers. Typically they will be in a little deeper water. If the baits hemmed up in say 2 to 8 ft the guarding stripers will be in 10 to 15 ft and the larger schools will be in 15 to 30 ft <example depths>. After you find the first pod mark it on your graph, then keep looking and mark at least 3 to 4 more pods. This will help you locate with accuracy the depth the schools are in. Go back and locate the first pod and mark it. Repeat this procedure with each pod at least 3 times and you will be able to chart if they are moving and which way or if they are just sitting.

Now after you have made those determination look on your plotter and locate cuts in the bank, if you see a cut that has a fast drop off into deep water and the schools are near it you just found their ambush point for the evening bite. So now you have removed 80% of the guess work. You have located bait, located the main pods of stripers, and located the evening’s most likely spot for a major feed and the center point of the pods.

Now is the time to go get the bait.. This is when it is smart to have two tanks, one to keep bait as healthy as possible. No more than 20 baits in this tanks. The other tank to max out with shad and lots of it! After you have filled both up go out to the center point of the pods or the biggest one and with your hand grab a handful of shad and squeeze. Don’t crush them but wound them so they swim erratically. Start throwing them over the school keep doing this until bait is sinking some will die and that’s ok because you want them to sink too.

After you get the sinkers and wounded fish making a commotion on the top use your trolling motor to slowly motor over to the upwind section of the evening feeding cut. Basically you are leading the stripers to where you want them. Once there anchor up so you are about 30 to 40 ft off the cut as to not disturb them from using it. Start throwing heavier amounts of shad (chum) into the cut for a good 5 minutes. By now you may have seen some stripers slashing the bait. Or marked them on your graph.

Now is the time to cut back on the chum to just a few shad every 20 seconds or so and also it’s the time to bait a live one. Cast the live shad out and hold on you will get bit. Also it is very important to keep feeding chum even if hooked up. You want to keep the stripers there.

If you cannot find or get live bait another good option is to buy Anchovies or Sardines, They are difficult to find around here so you may want to order them online, I would suggest at minimum 10lb’s. When you get them home thaw out at least 4pnds and cut them into 1inch chunks. Stripers will eat chunked bait, you chum just like you would with live chad keeping a steady stream going but be cautious not to over chum or you will fill them up.

There are times Stripers are not locking up bait, this can be a time of frustration at chumming will get them concentrated to where you are and hold them with you. Chunked bait is great at this time to keep them near you and keep you hooked up. If this is the case as well an old trick to remember if using live bait is, the bait will ball up under your boat for safety. About every 30 minutes I will fire up the big motor and shoot ahead about 60ft fast. This will send the bait scattering and can really excite the stripers as now the bait is scattered and easy prey. Have fun and give it a try “if legal on your favorite body of water”.

[duckydoty]

Great information Scott. I plan on persuing the stripers after my Alaska stint is over.

[Wildeye]

I chum for stripers and hybrids in my local lakes here in OK all the time, and it is very helpful. We are often downlining with 6-10 rods, and when they are all getting slammed you need to keep bait under you. I save any dead baits and usually will keep a small bucket with several handfuls of chunked up bait. When I notice we are down to very few baits down in the water, a few handfuls of shad chunks will usually keep the fish under us. I have cleaned our average size 2-4lb hybrid with up to 30 pieces of chum in it, and have seen a pic of a 6lb blue that had 75 pieces in its gut. I also like to just cut the tails off of several shad and flip them over live, they put off alot of commotion and seem to draw fish to the boat when they start to scatter.

I like your positioning technique F&F, enjoyable post as usual.

[chi0082]

Thanks F&F. Love reading your posts.