New England Seabirds

This site is dedicated to the great world traveler the Wilson's Storm-petrel

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Chumming

What Is Chum
Stale Bread
Bait Fish
Fish Oil Drip Bag
Frozen Fish Block
Beef Fat
Recipies

What is Chum
It's a big ocean and chumming is equivalent to using backyard bird feeders to attract birds close to the boat. The best chum is a fishing boat cleaning fish and throwing the waste over the side. Gulls seems to be attracted from great distances to such a feast.

Do not bring chum unless invited by the trip sponsor to do so and do not start chumming until directed by the trip leader. Chumming can be very messy and some boat captains just won't allow it on their boat. Do not try to chum from a whale watching boat.

Do not throw garbage (even biodegrable) in the ocean from a whale watching boat or a fishing boat. Plastics and other trash is a serious problem for marine animals and teaching tourists not to use the ocean as a garbage dump is one of the objectives of the whale watching trips.

Popcorn and Stale Bread Attracts Gulls
A group of gulls following a pelagic birding boat may attract jaegers and other birds to the boat. Unlike the tubenosed birds, gulls do not have great olfactory senses and find food visibly. Stale sliced bread can be hurled like a frisbie into the air behind the boat to attract the gulls. Once you have attracted a bunch of gulls you can probably quit throwing bread.

In my experience no birds eat popcorn. The big advantage of popcorn is that it floats. In even a light wind it hard to throw the popcorn high enough to attract attention and a good deal of it falls onto the deck making a mess.

Bait Fish
Cutt up pieces of bait fish thrown behind the boat is effective, but the bait will sink almost immediately and is expensive. You should plan to tip the crew for cutting it up and throwing it for you.

Drip Bag with Fish Oil
The most effective method of chumming for storm-petresl I have observed is the fish oil drip bag demonstrated here on the CORE pelagic by Mike Overton.

This method was invented by Butch Pearse on a Patterson Pelagic trip off North Carolina and is described below by Jennifer Green as the Chum-a-mator.

Mike uses Menhaden Oil which can be purchased at a bait store or ordered . To dispense the oil he uses a Fountain Syringe purchased at any drug store. It needs to have an opening at the top and bottom and should be firmly attached to the boat.
Here is Mike refilling the bag with oil using a funnel. The line is a fishing line and has nothing to do with the drip bag.

Occasionally the exit hole will become plugging with lumps of fat in the oil and require cleaning.
On The July 5, 2004 CORE trip this method left trail of oil floating on the surface and attracted a stream of Storm-petrels and Shearwaters that followed the boat constantly for 3 days. This is perhaps not quite ethical as the birds are following the scent and not obtaining any food energy for their efforts. You should toss out bits of fat or fish bait to actually give them some food.

On the right Mike Overton with the gallon of Lighthouse 100% Menhaden Oil. One source for this oil is:
Norva Bait Co; 945 Beaufort, NC 28516		 Mike Overton
On: the Perpetua Bank trip off Oregon, they punched a hole in the bottom of the plastic jug and tied the jug to the back of the boat. This was not as effective as the drip bag on the eastern trip. Either the hole kept getting plugged or there just were not many Storm-petrels around that day. We had only a few Forked-tailed Storm-petrels on that trip. It was hard to say the drip was attracting them.
Frozen Fish Block
Albatross Encounters in New Zealand uses a block of frozen fish waste in a wire cage. The cage has floats on the side and is tied to the boat with a rope only when the boat is stopped. Within minutes the block was attack by the Cape Petrels and eventually 8 species of Albatross. Dragging this block behind a moving boat would probably destroy it.
Beef Fat
I was totally amazed to see chucks of beef fat used as chum on the Perpetual Bank Trip out of Oregon. It floats and it seems to work. I even saw Black-footed Albatross pecking at it. You can get this beef fat from the butcher by asking for beef suet for feeding birds usually for a small cost. Perhaps dripping some fish oil over the fat might improve the smell at least for seabirds.


Paul Guris - Recipie for Chum
 Chum should be made from oily fish, squid, and other marine life. If you can get shark liver from local fishermen, there is nothing better. I have had Wilson's Storm-Petrels literally fighting each other 2-3m from the boat to get at it.

The first method of using chum is to toss over pieces as the boat moves along. This should keep a flock of gulls and other birds behind the boat, which will attract the attention of other species. The chum should be in pieces large enough to interest a gull, but small enough that you don't feed them too much. Tossing it up high seems to excite the gulls more.

The other chumming method is to stop the boat and put out a "slick". This is done by ladling out ground chum for several minutes and waiting to see what comes to investigate the oily slick you made. You should only attempt a slick if the seas are reasonably calm, because participants are more likely to get seasick on a stopped boat in rolling seas. A slick is generally most effective when you are in an area with a number of birds. It will bring them closer to the boat and will hopefully attract something different.

Paul A. Guris Green Lane, PA USA pguris@moneynet.com

The Chum-a-mator From Jennifer Green
The Chum-a-mator is a bag that drips cod liver oil to attract tubenoses- albatross, storm petrels, petrels and shearwaters who all hunt in part by smell.
The original idea came from a design by Butch Pearse on a Patterson Pelagic trip off North Carolina.

I started with an enema bag, replacing the flimsy tubing that came with the bag with sturdy tubing and a flow value from a garden store. I suspended the whole thing in a lingerie bag of net and attached two carabiners to hang it. I rope it in place off the back corner of the boat. Be sure to fill it before the boat starts moving and wait to open the valve until you get to likely water. I mixed vegetable oil with bottle of cod liver oil (not cherry or mint flavored ) and let it sit overnight in the garage. A funnel is helpful and handiwipes for cleaning up on the boat as you are likely to be oily before you are done. It sure is messy to put away and needs double bagging in a warm car.

The first test of my Chum-a-mator was on a California pelagic. Once the boat was offshore, I adjusted for a gentle single drip. We left an itsy bitsy slick everywhere we went. There were many skeptics on board. Albatross flew in to the boat. Storm petrels checked out the wake briefly. Shearwaters loved it. The first bag full lasted for 6 hours. About 1:30 in the afternoon a large chocolate brown storm petrel with caramel carpal bars flew arcing up the wake and to the side of the boat, then back to the wake slick... a Markham's Storm Petrel not previously recorded in North America. It worked!
Jennifer Green birds in California and has been a stand in for Debbie Shearwater on some trips. greenotter@iName.com