Luncheon Meat.
How Fresh Are Your Meats?
Hooking Your Luncheon Meat
This is an easy process. Take a block of meat and push the hook through it until the hook bend is showing out of the bottom of the block. However two different approaches are needed for fresh and tinned luncheon meat. The fresh luncheon meat is firmer and has a better consistancy so it stays on the hook better when casting. Tinned luncheon meat is slippery so either put a maggot or a piece of grass between the hook bend and the block of luncheon meat.
Spam Spam Spam!
Not just a humerous Monty Python sketch but a killer fish bait also. Other brands of luncheon meat are available and are just as effective. Fresh luncheon meat can be bought over the deli counter and a sizable block can be bought and cut up into hook sized chunks. You can then take what ever you need for a fishing trip and freeze the rest for another day. Or alternatively you can take a can and open it when you get to the fishing waters. And again if you dont use a can or two you can take them home and keep them again for another day. Luncheon meat is cheap and an excellent fishing bait.
Fresh deli bought luncheon meat is the best meat but some anglers swear by the tinned variety. Like most other baits fresh is best.
More Fat?
If you find that the tinned luncheon meat is a winner and you are having huge amounts of success with it why not make it more attractive to the fish? But how? Well take a frying pan and melt either some beef dripping, lard or other animal fat and add the chunks of luncheon meat. Make sure the blocks are coated and then let them cool. You will find that there will be a film of fat around you meat which in the case of tinned meat will firm it up and make it easier to hook.
Angler beware on some waters tinned luncheon meat has been banned because of careless anglers leaving the empty tins lying around. So dont get banned bin it instead.
Fresh or Tinned?
The fresh luncheon meat is firm and easy to hook but if it is left for a period of time it tends to dry out so storage in a polythene bag is advisable. Tinned meat has a higher water and jelly content so does not tend to dry out though it is more difficult to hook. Also some anglers prefer tinned luncheon meat as the jelly and fat content leaks into the water and attracts more fish leading to more successful bites and catching big fish.