Offshore Field Test:

Here Fishy Fishy Chum

By: Captain Ralph Piñeiro

The first thing I was told about this chum was: DO NOT REFRIGERATE, so I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive before I opened the Fishy Fishy Chum. I thought of something fast and stepped away from the bucket and tricked my mate into opening it (just in case). The bad news is that the stuff looks nasty, a bunch of small pellets roughly the size of a lighter flint, covered by an oily, syrupy liquid (menhaden oil). There is a scoop inside the bucket. The smell will remind old timers like me, when mom used to give us a spoonful of cod oil, way back when we were kids and were sick with a cold. Now for the good news. The chum actually works pretty darn good. Visit their website at www.herefishyfishy.net.

The best use that I’ve found for it, is catching bait on a flat or shallow patch. Just throw a scoop of the pellets in the water and they’ll sink to the bottom. The chum will time release itself, the oil will float, and the dinner bell will ring. Pretty soon you’ll have a combination of blue runners, jacks, pinfish, ballyhoo, pilchards, sardines, grunts, and just about everything else that lives on your favorite bait patch swimming hungrily behind the boat.

I also used the fishy-fishy chum for mangroves on a shallow patch (45 feet). Here we had more logistics to work out. You can not put this chum on a regular chum bag, it’s too small. You’ll need to enlist the help of your wife or girlfriend (knowingly or unknowingly). It just so happens that the best bag to deploy this chum, is inside one of your wife’s pantyhose. Now I’m no expert on women, but I’ve been married 30 years, and I don’t think she would understand if you took a good pair of her hosiery, filled it up with a fishy, oily and smelly concoction just so you can catch fish. Here’s my recommendation, which I’ll deny if asked: Call your kitty-cat over and tease him with the panty hose. In a few seconds, he’ll shred the pantyhose turning them into perfect chum bags. Then you can ask the wife if you can use her torn pantyhose. A word of caution: Do not go to the store and buy a new pair! Wives and girlfriends are not very understanding and may not believe you when she finds a strange pair of feminine undergarments on your boat or around the house!

Back to the chum. I sank a pantyhose filled with a couple of scoops of the chum inside. We caught several nice mangroves and a couple of red groupers just shy of the 20” minimum. I’m going to try to have a bag, I mean pantyhose, ready to deploy when fishing for dolphin next time to see if I can keep them around the boat a bit longer or fire them up if they have a case of locked-jaw. I’m just letting things cool down a bit since I got caught teasing the cat with some pantyhose…

That’s it for now, tight lines, and don’t forget to release some for tomorrow’s anglers.

Capt. Ralph is a USCG licensed and MET Tournament registered captain. He runs a tournament-rigged 31’ Contender and fishes the Miami and upper Keys areas, as well as providing multi-day Bahamas fishing trips. Please visit his Website, www.GonCatchin.com, and e-mail him at CaptRalph@GonCatchin.com or call him at 305-248-5745 with your fishing stories and reports.

That’s it for now, tight lines, and don’t forget to release some for tomorrow’s anglers.

Capt. Ralph is a USCG licensed and MET Tournament registered captain. He runs a tournament-rigged 31’ Contender and fishes the Miami and upper Keys areas, as well as providing multi-day Bahamas fishing trips. Please visit his Website, www.GonCatchin.com, and e-mail him at CaptRalph@GonCatchin.com or call him at 305-248-5745 with your fishing stories and reports.