Steve Ringer Tips for fishing with meat plus new Ask Ringer Q&A
Carp, skimmers, F1s – they all love a summer treat of meat. This week Steve reveals how to make this bait work for you...
WHATEVER you might want to believe, meat isn’t just a bait for carp! In fact, if I think about it there aren’t many species that won’t eat a cube of meat and you’ll find that skimmers, in particular, love to eat the stuff.
Some of my biggest catches of fish have come with meat on the hook, so it always puzzles me that more anglers don’t use this bait when trying to put together a big weight of all species.
Right now the fish are in an obliging mood so I’ve come to Barston Lakes to prove the power of luncheon meat.
HOW MUCH MEAT?
Suprisingly, you don’t need a lot of meat to catch a big weight. For a five-hour session, if fishery rules allow, I’d ideally have four tins of luncheon meat cut into 6mm cubes.
Cube size is crucial here. You need to strike a balance between getting bites and being rewarded for your work, and I’ve found 6mm cubes to be best. They tend to bring a better stamp of fish.
While I want to catch a mixture of species, I also want to make sure they are of a stamp that is worth the effort.
If you go smaller with cube size you run the risk of being bitted out by 2oz roach or similar small fry.
I swear by Plumrose meat. It has a nice firm texture, which is important when hooking, and it isn’t too fatty, so it doesn’t all float as some brands do!
KEEP IT WET
One of the most important things to take into account when fishing with meat is bait management during your session.
I always keep my cubes in water so they doesn’t dry out and become useless – the important word here is ‘wet’, not ‘flooded’!
Put too much water on and the cubes of meat can become too soft and consequently become hard to keep on the hook.
As well as meat I also like to have a couple of pints of wetted-down 2mm micro pellets.
I feel that when it comes to kicking the swim off I need something more than just meat,
hence the micro pellets, and the two baits together give a little bit more in terms of pulling power and feeding options.
GET A SLOW FALL
Barston is a relatively shallow lake, with just over 3ft of water at 11m on most pegs.
It’s worth mentioning here that unless every peg is in I don’t like to fish too far out. I reckon that the closer I can catch, the faster I will put a weight together, and it makes feeding a lot easier too.
If the pegging is tight, though, then this tends to have the effect of pushing the fish out, so I will look to fish at 13m or possibly even further out.
As far as rig choice goes I want to catch fish all the way through the water, so a light float is a must to take advantage of catching fish on the drop.
One thing you will notice when meat fishing is that you get a lot of bites as the rig falls through the water, particularly so when catching big skimmers.
Taking this into account, my float choice is a Mick Wilkinson 10x11 F1 Slim. This is a slim-bodied float which I find perfect for holding on to when laying the rig in so that I get a nice slow fall of the hookbait.
Mainline is 0.17mm N-Gauge, which is robust enough to cope with everything from carp to F1s and skimmers, without being over-gunned.
My hooklength is 6ins of 0.13mm