Meat rigs

Meat baits include tried, tested and highly successful baits like luncheon meat, Spam and Bacon Grill but there are many other things that could fall in the category of Meat Baits that have caught plenty of other cats including sausages in their many forms - frankfurters, Mattesons, polony, Polish slaska, black pudding and chorizo. All these baits will catch catfish. Meatballs of all kinds can be included here too.

Most of these baits are firm enough to stay on the hook directly for short distance casting and close range freelining but for the regular occasions when you need to cast the bait with some force, most will fly off the hook either on the cast or on impact with the water. The answer of course is to hair rig them but even heavy braided hooklinks will soon cut through a hefty bait like a half tin of luncheon meat so meat rigs usually incorporate some form of tubing or straw to stop this. Baits are held in place with a buffer of some sort such as plastic or rubber discs, bait shields or purpose made meat stops. Rigged in this way, large meaty baits can happily be flung skywards with out fear of leaving an unbaited hook!