Reading a recent local fishing column on the fine art of chumming (tossing choopped fish parts or bait into the water, either on the surface in a slick or in a sunken bucket, to attract fish, it occurred to me how disparate were the two meanings I know for this word (the other, of course, being "chum" in the sense of a friend). So I was curious as to how this came to be and investigated. Seems the 'cut bait' def is traced to the mid-19C US, origin unknown. The etymology for the other nuance is more readily available. Here's what The Word Detective had to say (BTW, OneLook has just been reformatted and doesn't seem as comprensive as it used to be in bringing up each dictionary's definition(s)?):

http://www.word-detective.com/back-r.html#chum

Any suggestions on the origin of the fishing "chum" and the reason for their correlation?