Scup

I use a new large meat grinder I purchased from Northern Tools than has a flywheel pulley arrangement on it so you can attached an electric motor to it. The basic grinder is a good idea, but the grinder was made in China, need I say any more. The die that came with it was useless for chum being designed more for making hamburgers than chum. Spent more on buying dies, by trial an error, than on the grinder itself. Finally, the most coarse die sold turned out to be the most appropriate. It is basically a four hole die intended for stuffing sausages. Keep in mind, that I was making chum for putting in chum pots and scup pots (for bait) to be used on our local inshore reefs. The electric motor that powers the unit is old washing machine motor. I used a ten to one ratio in pulley size and it was a poor selection. It would have been far better to reduce the motor's 1800 RPM even more by using a jack staff. Still, the grinder was able to chomp through most of what I hacked up with a machete first to get it to fit into the hopper. I threw just about everything and anything I got my hands on into the grinder including lobsters. When a dealer purchases a load of off shore lobsters (the big one going over 8 pounds or so) there will always be some that are crap and just cannot be sold. They still end up in the mix and are culled out and tossed in the trash. I have made arrangements with a local dealer to put these aside for me. The grinder will chimp through even these assuming one leaves out the claws. The problem I have had with this grinder is the poor fit between the spiral feeder and the inside case. Lobster shells can get caught between the two and jam things up. Since a drive belt is used, the belt slips when jammed. Power has to be turned off, and one has to manually back off on the flywheel to get things running again. I acquired a dead man foot switch to operate it and to quickly shut things down if it jams which happens way too often. The grinder does turn way too quickly and more torque and less rpm is needed. With the low hopper supplied, I can see where it would be very easy to have ones fingers end up in the chum mix as well. It really needs an extension on its hopper to make it safer to use. There is nothing wrong in the idea of making ones own chum, but if you go this route, try to get a decent used commercial one intended for the purpose rather than fussing around with something from China that at best is only marginal. As far as the effectiveness of the chum mix I was amazed its results. With the fish and lobster mix, the chum took on a somewhat pink appearance. The chum was still slightly finer than I liked, but extremely effective in holding scup at bay. My two gallon chum pot would work for about an hour before it would have to be refilled. However, it would not die immediately at the one hour mark and quite often ones commercial limit would be reached before it pooped out. When used as bait in a scup pot, it would work just as good, if not better, than clam snot. The clam snot had longevity on its side, while my mix would really bring them very quickly into the pots. All in all, the idea worked, but if I had to do it all over again, I would just buy my chum from the wholesalers. After chopping the fish and lobsters into sizes suitable to grind I would end up looking like something out of a horror movie. I could make about a gallon of chum in ten minutes once I got started, but that is not counting the cleanup afterwards. By cleanup, I do not mean the equipment but my shower. I would like to add this comment however: I tend to be frugal and try to skimp on the chum. Big mistake! Since I get paid for my catch, I tracked my catch results on the days I used chum and on the days I did not. Easily, my catch records indicated at least an average of three times more fish caught using chum than not. The chum pays for itself several times over and this is for scup caught in close off local reefs. If one was to go offshore, I just cannot imagine anyone skimping on the chum, as pointed out, fuel is just too expensive now a days.

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"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go" by William Feather

striper1

My sentiments exactly!!!!

PM me if there is an interest in bluefish chum.

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Feed'em Steel!
26' Striper Alaskan