The word on Chumming......

[curt quesnell]

Just got off the phone with the local CO with the skinny

on chumming. (tossing ground up fish-minnows down the hole

to attract fish). He told me you could not do this and

be following the rules.

So I asked about cleaning up around the holes, squishin th

bodys up and tossing them down and he said it was pretty

much the same thing. (grrrrr). He told me the rule applied

to chum grinders but chumming is chumming even on a small

scale. I confessed and he gave me absolution...this time.

He did say it would be pretty hard to catch someone tossing

a minnow head down the hole.

At the end of our conversation he said the COs are going to

check for size and numbers of fish and several other things

before they ask if you may have kicked a dead minnow down

the hole.

Dont dump out your minnows down the hole, or toss em onto

the ice or dump them on shore at the end of the day. If

you dump them it must be in the bucket at the cleaning

shack or in the garbage somewhere. I save them and freeze

them for later.

I know we all want to follow the rules.

[mnhunter 3815]

thats some good info.so can you just use the head of a minnow on a jig???? and when you get a fish and you want to put a new 1 on you cant throw the dead 1 down the hole or around your hole???.

[fiskyknut]

I thought most knew chumming was a no-no in MN. Been that way forever and we've touched on it a few times over the years here on FM. Gotta kinda read between the lines in this years regs {Depositing fish entrails or fish parts into public waters or onto lake or streamshores is prohibited} being a Minnow is a fish, and that tail half would be a fish part it's pretty clear to me that we are'nt supposed to be doing this! Years past if I remember right the book mentioned 'chumming' specifically as illegal.

MNhunter if the minnow head is on your hook that'd be considered bait eh!! Throwing the tail half down the hole would technically be chumming.

No doubt a tuff one for the CO's and I doubt many folks are ticketed for such very often.

[mnhunter 3815]

i have never chummed for fish.but the way the dnr keeps chnaging things around here no1 knows what they can and can not do.lol

[Twisted]

I have a wonderful minnow & saurkraut stew recipe if anyone wants a legal way to make use of those little buggers.

[northerndave]

don't go trying to act all suffishticated on us all with yer "sourkraut stew" business, as if you would bother cookin yer minners before you ate em....

we know you aint that fancy.

[toddb]

I have a couple buddies that chum in the summer months. They only do it when the waves get around 3' or so . It doesn't work well for them at all!

later,

toddb

[curt quesnell]

I would not set up a grinder and dump smelt down the

hole but seriously I never would have figured the pinched

off minnow bodys to be fish entrails (although they are,

I guess). After a couple of hours you have 10 or 12

bodys laying around your hole, when things slow down you

get to do some housekeeping so you flick these 1/2 minnows

down the hole to get rid of them. I have now learned the

proper way to take care of these things it to toss em

into your minnow bucket and put em in the garbage on shore.

Somewhere in between a sound rule and no rule there

is a grey area, this is one of them. I dont feel too bad

about breaking this rule in the past, but I will change the

way I handle my minnows.

Thanks all

[grpd]

I have not quite figured this out, if you throw your minnows that you do not use onto the ice what is it hurting, in open water i understand, but in the winter birds, fox or whatever will take care of them and am sure it is not an issue of cluttering the shore. I might be missing something here and know i will get an answer of some sort then maybe it will set me straight on how i feel about it

[curt quesnell]

Somewhere along the line, the decision was made to not

allow chumming in Minnesota. Tossing a few dead minnows

down the hole, while on a small scale, is exactly chumming.

The decision was also made to not allow littering

tossing dead fish and piles of guts all over the ice. Again

in a very small way that is exactly what leaving the last

of your minnows or the pinched off bodies next to the

hole. Where should the line be drawn?

One final note, This topic was started buy us not a CO

coming down on us. They dont go from house to house looking

for pinched minnows and small time chummers.