Good old fashioned plain Luncheon Meat has long been a favourite bait of mine, I caught my first ever Barbel on it many years ago, but I have also landed some good carp and chub using it in various forms.

I have very rarely in the past done anything else other than cut a tin or two into chunks anything from half an inch to 2 inch square in size. I often add to that either a few drops of flavour and maybe a teaspoon full of curry or chilli powder, place the whole lot in a poly bag and shake it up, and away you go.

Luncheon meat has won a lot of matchman a lot of money over the years with a meat cutter playing a big roll in this. Using a good quality meat cutter it is possible to produce thousands of perfect cubes of meat of the desired size in just a few seconds.  Suddenly meat becomes a particle bait and it’s possible to feed it much easier with a catapult due to the uniform size of the cubes.

Last season I had the urge to try the meat cutter method on the river in pursuit of some Chub and Barbel and instead of fishing a large lump on the hook I would scale down and use a single 10mm cube. The idea being to trickle in a steady flow of the same size cubes along with some hemp, then to present the single chunk on a smallish hook with as little lead as I could get away with, bouncing the bait through the swim as I fished.
I prefer to prepare my meat before I go fishing, it’s also worth remembering most fisheries don’t allow cans on the venue.

To prepare the perfect meat follows these simple steps.

Step 1: Use a good quality meat cutter, the Sonu Baits one is available in 3 sizes, 6, 8 and 10mm it is of an all metal construction and does the job brilliantly. Open your can carefully force the meat through the first stage, then the second and within moments you will have hundreds of perfect cubes of meat.

Step 2: Place the meat in a strongish poly bag and if you want add a few drops of flavour, Sonu Monster Crab works well and also gives the meat a nice red colour. If you are very brave the most effective of all flavours for meat is garlic, either add some garlic salt or better still a couple of cloves of freshly crushed garlic, but be prepared for nobody to speak to you for a day or two as it stinks a bit, but can be very effective.

Step 3: Sprinkle over the meat a good heaped teaspoon of Curry Powder, give the bag a good shake to evenly coat all the cubes. An alternative to the curry is to add a spoonful of Supercrush Green groundbait, the meat will take on a nice greenish tinge and be boasted by the flavour of the crushed pellet in the groundbait. For the very best results I freeze mine at this point, this will add to its effectiveness, the various flavours are drawn into the meat as it thaws, and the meat holds its flavour much longer.

Step 4: Either mount the bait straight onto a suitable hook or as I prefer hair rig it, in this case it’s a Korum S3 size 12 tied to some Preston Powerline.
The results last season were very encouraging and on days when a bite was hard to come by I managed some chub and an odd Barbel when others around were struggling. The best Barbel I had last season on this method being just short of a double and that came on a single 10mm chunk, so well worth the effort.