So i was able to successfully get all of my film's shark cage scene footage shot, but my camera did not make it. Due to the extreme pressure (being 400ft deep underwater) a water leak occurred in my camera's 'waterproof' casing that led to the drowning and short-circuiting of my equipment. Scarier than the Great White predators, was that my camera's battery caught on fire when I took it back up on board and it had to be extinguished! We were miles away from shore and the Coast Guard. Had we not acted quickly, the boat woulda caught on fire and we would have all been devoured by those sharks that were so aggressively circling our boat due to the chum we had tossed into the water prior to the dive. Long story short, it was one hell of a film shoot adventure, and I lived to tell. Can't wait to edit this material into my feature, as it was everything I had envisioned, and so much more. Also, I needed to get myself a new BlackMagic camera soon anyway (this one had a temperamental sensor, gonna get the upgrade 6k), so be it. This demise was 'meant to be.' bye.
CHUM: To Grind or not to Grind
Grinding up your own chum is messy, time consuming, and you will need a place to freeze and store it. If you go out many times a year, or can’t find a local supply, it may be worth the effort of grinding your own. And effort is the key word. You will have to catch or buy the fish to be ground up. Grind up small fish like herring, mackerel , menhaden or whatever small fish are available in your area. If you grind your own, put the ground up chum in 4 or 5 gal buckets, leaving it down an inch to two inches from the top to allow for expansion when it freezes. I prefer the four gallon buckets which are easier to store and easier to handle. When we grind, we continuously spray a little menhaden oil into the ground up chum. Also fill a few smaller size buckets. These smaller amounts in 1- 3 gal sizes are easy to add to the chum dispenser if the regular chum runs down, and because of time constraints, or at the end of the day you may not want to add a full larger bucket. Use a suitable large electric grinder, and plan in advance on the number of buckets needed, and don’t forget the lids. There are always more buckets around than lids. To give you an idea of how much fish you might need to grind up; a hundred pounds of small fish like mackerel and herring will yield about three 5 gal buckets of ground up chum. A full fish tote of herring (125lbs+/-) will yield about 18 gallons of chum. From these basic figures you can estimate what you need. Unused frozen chum a year old still works well, so don’t throw it away at the end of the season, as long as it was continuously frozen . Also left over chum from a day at sea, may be refrozen and used again in the same year. I used to think it would lose its “juice”, but to me it works just as well the second time as the first time. Some sharkers, opt for not using frozen chum at all. They just bring out some iced down relatively fresh bait fish, and chop it up when they get to their watery destination.
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