Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
One tin, endless possibilities!
From cubing to flavouring and colouring to liquidising, meat is one of the most versatile baits around says match ace Zac Brown
VERSATILITY is the main advantage of luncheon meat, a single tin enabling you to feed and fish a huge variety of presentations using a number of tactics. And yet it is a bait that many anglers shy away from during colder months or have simply forgotten as the craze for pellets and groundbait has gained so much momentum on commercial venues. “Meat is a bait that features in all my fishing, regardless of the time of year,” asserts Preston Innovations-backed matchman Zac Brown. “You can use it just as effectively on the bomb – like today – or the pole, feeder or waggler. It’s universal, a bait you can’t afford to ignore.” To establish what it is about meat that Zac loves so much, we joined him on the banks at Oakfield Fishery, near Bicester, Oxfordshire, (www.oakfieldfishery.net) where the 33-yearold Caterham rod revealed all.
Meat’s a treat
Meat’s biggest positive is that one tin offers the thinking angler a range of possibilities. For today’s session, Zac had opted for a straightforward approach of combining cubed meat with a free-running bomb set-up. But, there is nothing to stop him from ripping off a larger piece and waiting for a big fish to find it. He could just as easily punch out hookbaits, cut the meat into slices and press it through a riddle.
He could fish it liquidised, before fishing it with or without the addition of dry groundbait to add an extra dimension of texture. Then there’s colouring, flavouring or twice cutting, where the cubes are run through the cutter again, to produce meat of uneven sizes. “Pellets are pretty one-dimensional by comparison,” said Zac. “There’s nothing wrong with them because they catch hundreds of thousands of fish every year but, apart from adding a flavour or colour, there’s not much else you can do to them. For me, you might as well buy pre-flavoured and/or coloured pellets in the first place, rather than spend time doing it yourself. “Also, with pellets you are fairly constrained as to how you fish them. With a couple of tins of meat I’m able to fish a number of lines, each one with a different bait presentation.” Another reason it takes pride of place on Zac’s side tray is that it will enable you to catch almost anything that swims. Carp, F1s, bream, skimmers, tench, stillwater chub, barbel and even roach – if they get a look in – have all visited the banks due to its meaty allure.
Fishing with meat
In winter, the apparent disadvantages of meat need to be overcome because it is high in protein, which makes it filling, and also it is very fatty. Zac has no problem with the fact it is more filling than maggots or casters – he simply feeds less! And to reduce the fat content, he always stores his meat in water to wash away much of the fat as well as preventing it from drying out. “Keeping the cubes in water helps stop them sticking together,” explained Zac. “This means it catapults more accurately rather than a ball of several cubes breaking up in flight and spreading much wider than you want. It is not how you feed the meat so much as how you regulate it that counts.” In the summer, he might catapult a couple of pouches every few minutes. In the winter, this will drop to possibly 1-3 cubes every two minutes. If he is using cubes, Zac generally uses an 8mm cutter for the bomb, and either riddled (mushed) meat or 6mm cubes on the pole. During the winter, fish tend to push away from the banks. And, although it seems wrong, Zac
recommends using a larger cube, not so you feed more, but so that you can catapult those cubes further. You just feed it more sparingly. To prepare the meat, Zac removes the block from the tin and then runs it through his trusty cutter before pouring lake water over the result. “My favourite meat is Lidl’s Chopped Ham and Pork. As well as being on the tougher side, it is very cheap.”
Zac’s bomb set-up
Opting for the straight lead for today’s session, Zac had his 15g bomb free-running on the 6lb Preston Innovation’s Direct mono he was using. “I think the size of bomb makes a massive difference at this time of year,” explained Zac. “Your fishing is limited to the distance you can catapult loosefeed, so you don’t need a large lead because you’re not casting to the horizon. Also, a smaller bomb makes a delicate ‘plop’ not a ‘crash!’ as it enters the water mimicking a loosefed cube.” The hooklink is 3ft of 0.15mm (5lb 14oz) Preston Innovations Powerline to a size 16 PR36 hook. Meat sinks very slowly and the long hooklink – 3ft into a 7ft swim in today’s case – enables the hookbait to flutter down over the last 3ft where the fish will probably be lying up. “They see the hookbait fall past their eyes just like a cube of loosefed meat and can’t resist following it down to feed. I hair-rig a small latex bait band and pull this into the bait. The band then expands to secure the bait and it is so much easier than fiddly hair-stops.”
How the session fished Sitting a quarter of the way down Brook Lake, Zac was looking to fish to the centre of the pool. This is the furthest the fish can get away from either bank. It was also a comfortable range to catapult his loosefeed. “With my bomb set-up, I could cast to the far bank if needed, but you are constricted by the range you can feed your meat,” he explained. “It’s around 20m or so today, but if 14m-16m was ‘comfortable’ in the prevailing weather conditions, I’d fish there. The key is to fish as far out as possible, but not so far that it’s difficult to loosefeed accurately.” Zac kicks off the day with five cubes fed every two minutes over the first half hour. Thereafter a pattern should form as to what the fish want. On a slow day, or one without no bites, he will reduce this to possibly one or two cubes, but will keep up the two minute feeding regime. “Unlike pellets, where half a pot may include 500-1000 individual food items, meat is so much easier to regulate because the particles are bigger,” affirmed Zac. Meat maybe unfashionable at the moment, due to the high influx of fishmeals and other baits but being without it is one gamble Zac is unwilling to take.