The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Up to half a tin has been found to be very effective!

See http://www.stevepopebarbelfishing.co.uk/?p=311

I rarely use meat , I should use it more often.
I've only fished rivers a handful of times - so I'm not normally targetting chub and barbel.
However I should use it more for tench, and for floatfishing for carp.
One of the local tackle shops does sell tins of bacon grill.

Meat flavourings?

I occasionally coat my tinned meats with fajita spice mix. A little extra attraction in coloured water, well that's the theory any way!
I've not tried it but sugar is also supposed to be effective?

Tesco has garlic Spam, last year it was on the shelves, I used to pick up a couple of tins and they would refuse to sell it to me because they had no price code for it. This went on for about 5 weeks until it disappeared. It was there last weekend at a reduced price so I bought a few tins to give it a try.

I've been using tinned meat for yonks. Spam works well, as does any other type of luncheon meat. I find bacon grill good too, especially when casting as it is a bit tougher...

It is definitely a warm water bait, I find the fat congeals in the colder weather and stops the attractant leaking out.

Some of the tinned meats (particularly the cheapest ones) float in cold water as well, due to the high fat levels. Tinned meats give carp in particular all sorts of digestion issues in cold water. Feed them enough of it and they will go off the feed and suffer for quite some time, affecting other anglers sport as well.

Do you guy's use long shank hooks? And how do you hook it on these days?

I like a wide gap normal barbless, I hook right through and turn the hook so the the point is at the side of the cube. It works for me.

When trundling baits along the river bed I simply push the hook through the meat bend first, pull it out the other side so that the meat slides onto the line, then twist the hook and bury it back into the meat so it doesn't slip easily back through the hole you made in the first place. This way there is no hook point exposed to get caught up and damaged whilst the bait is moving. Just the same way as I put it on as a kid actually. Never had issues striking out of meat and I do use the firmer Bacon Grill for almost all of my meat fishing.

Shaun Harrison wrote:When trundling baits along the river bed I simply push the hook through the meat bend first, pull it out the other side so that the meat slides onto the line, then twist the hook and bury it back into the meat so it doesn't slip easily back through the hole you made in the first place. This way there is no hook point exposed to get caught up and damaged whilst the bait is moving. Just the same way as I put it on as a kid actually. Never had issues striking out of meat and I do use the firmer Bacon Grill for almost all of my meat fishing.

Likewise but I put a bit of a blade of grass between the hook and the meat to cushion it on casting - not sure whether it makes a difference.