Equipment
Rod Spod—Strategic chumming enables anglers to attract and hold fish within an area. A rocket-shaped spod is packed with boilies, maize, hemp seed, or other loose chum particles. Once the spod hits the water, flotation at its end tips it up and spills the contents. When the spod’s deployed, it becomes a target for casting baits near the chum.
Marker Floats—If multiple spods are required to chum an area, a marker float may be a better option: Cast out on a separate rod, it becomes the target. The idea is to keep the chum in a limited area. Once the chum’s in place, the marker’s moved so it isn’t in the way while fighting a fish.
Another marker option, if you have a boat, is to drive a PVC pipe into the bottom so it sticks out of the water. The pipe is smooth and flexible, allowing the line to slide up and over during a battle with a fish.
PVA—PVA is short for polyvinyl alcohol, a water-soluble material in the form of thread, bags, or a sock-like mesh called a funnel-web. PVA products work only when chumming with dry materials such as boilies or tiger nuts.
Fill a piece of funnel-web, or use a baiting needle to thread a bunch of boilies onto PVA thread, and attach it to your hook. Once the PVA dissolves, a tight pattern of bait is lying beside your hook and bait. If one strand of PVA thread dissolves too quickly to cast, double up the thread. Also leave space between each boilie, or the water might not reach the thread to break the boilies apart.
When using a funnel-web, once you’ve tied off your bait, tie a second knot right away before cutting the PVA. The second knot is the start of the next funnel bag and prevents wasting thread.
Throwing Sticks—This is a tool for shooting boilies a greater distance with accuracy. Curved models tend to be easier to master; in skilled hands, straight models cast farther.
Long-Range Rig—Slight modification is required to the standard bolt rig to improve its performance at long range. Aerodynamic sinkers offer greater casting distance. A small piece of silicone tubing slipped over the knot on the tail-end of the barrel swivel protects it from being damaged during impact with the bottom.
Boilies—Few other fish show interest in this commerical bait, but carp have no trouble sucking them up and breaking them apart with the pharyngeal teeth located at the entrance to their throats. Boilies don’t resemble anything that carp find in the environment, so it often takes time before they recognize them as food; yet boilies are made from healthy ingredients, which explains the carp’s affinity for them.
Boiled Maize—Field corn boiled for an hour to soften it also is a popular bait for chumming. Probably because of its amino acid content, carp recognize it immediately as food, even though it doesn’t have much nutritional value. Many anglers offer both bait choices, then gradually increase the boilie-to-corn ratio over time, as carp become familiar with boilies.
*Lonnie King is a fishery biologist and multispecies angler from Ontario, Canada.
Contacts: Carpins (Canada), 613/537-2248, carpins.ca; Wacker Baits (U.S.), 708/660-0866, wackerbaits.com.
