With a warm spring already upon us, it is a great time to try meat, but with everybody throwing in the same thing I try to outwit the fish using the Sonubaits tools at my disposal including sonu Bait paint and Sonu Liquid dyes.

1) It may sound obvious but it still amazes me that anglers don’t use meat cutters to prepare their meat. Benefits include speed, so it can even be done on the bank and the meat finishes up a uniform size for feeding and hookbaits. I use the Sonubaits cutter in 6mm for small carp and F1s and 8mm for bigger carp at venues such as Whiteacres.
2) Change the colour of the meat. Venues where meat is heavily used can often respond best to a change of colour. I use Sonubaits red or green bait paint for this. Put your prepared meat into a plastic bag, spray the bait up to 5 times then inflate the bag and shake vigorously, this will spread the colour throughout the bait. I do this the night before and keep it in the fridge and the colour slowly soaks through the meat, fooling weary fish.
3) Dusted meat is a method overlooked since the pellet revolution began, but again it works well on hard-fished venues. Sonubaits F1 mix complements this method perfectly. Put some cubed meat in a bag with some loose groundbait and shake, just like with the bait dye. For feed, push some meat through a riddle with some dry f1 mix, then slowly add water and riddle again.
4) Combine it with hemp. Hemp works brilliantly as a combination bait with meat. I use the Sonubaits Natural hemp seed, but crucially I don’t add too much. I use one part hemp to two parts meat, this ensures the fish don’t get too preoccupied with hemp and still eat plenty of meat. This combination is best fed through a cad pot, little and often.
5) Use it shallow. Meat sinks a lot slower than pellets, so is a great change bait when fishing shallow. It gives the fish more chance feed on the bait, rather than just coming to the noise. I still feed some Fin Perfect 6mm pellets to create a fish-attracting noise, but meat fed every third feed definitely helps to hold fish in the peg.