Meat rigs/cutbait:What's your take? (Discussion)

[tannero]

That's for sure, our forum has great folks who are always willing to help new guys like me

And yes, we'll have to get out together. Can't wait for spring browns on lake o if ur up to it

Sent from my SM-G900V using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[Sk8man]

Sounds real good stay in touch.

[Fishstix]

curious if this will make it to the board. Lots of good info.

[Yankee Troller]

 

[Sk8man]

Thanks for re-posting Stan. Rick gave an excellent update on the current status of things from the ten years ago that the original post was made. All this stuff is still relevant.  Rich emphasized the most critical part of the whole thing : the roll and getting it right. It makes all the difference in the world in results.

[chowder]

Since this thread is supposed to be for folks who are not super familiar with meat rigs I just thought I would remind the uninitiated and less familiar that every day can be a different day and if you are a typical weekend warrior DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET: Always let the fish tell you what they want. Start off with an assortment of what you have for presentations, vary speed, and direction and hopefully hone in from there. If green and white meat rigs running west at 2.8 are catching fish I don’t have to tell you what to do. If white and black mag spoons running east at 3.0 are catching fish then you know what to do. Most recreational anglers don’t fish enough to try and zero in from the get go- Always go with the basics. You don’t want to find out what was working when you get back to the docks with nothing- it’s not magical ‘in the know cell phone calls’ it’s process of elimination 

[Sk8man]

I would add that it can be more difficult to get things running right when you mix things up. Running meat effectively highly relates to running it at the right speed so that the bait is rolling right. When you add spoons to the mix it is important to know which spoons to use so that they run at compatible speed with the bait. Often the effective running speed for meat rigs is considerably slower than that for many spoons and different also than other attractors such as flashers and dodgers. Just something to be aware of. Direction of current can also be a complicating factor.

Edited January 20 by Sk8man

[Yankee Troller]

On 1/20/2024 at 10:41 AM, Sk8man said:

I would add that it can be more difficult to get things running right when you mix things up. Running meat effectively highly relates to running it at the right speed so that the bait is rolling right. When you add spoons to the mix it is important to know which spoons to use so that they run at compatible speed with the bait. Often the effective running speed for meat rigs is considerably slower than that for many spoons and different also than other attractors such as flashers and dodgers. Just something to be aware of. Direction of current can also be a complicating factor.

 

You are way over thinking running meat. We'll run meat daily with whatever brand spoon we want. Sometimes we have flasher/fly's out there and sometimes plugs while running meat.

 

The nice thing about the fake meat I posted about is you can tailor the roll to whatever speed you're trolling. So don't tailor your spread to the meat. Tailor your meat to your spread.

[Sk8man]

Running "fake" meat as you note has the opportunity to "tune" the bait much more than running true meat rigs or "live" rigs. Running them on lake O for Pacific salmon is a bit different than running them for lakers or browns/Atlantics on the Finger Lakes too as the salmon on Lake O aren't mainly bottom dwellers so you are running them fairly high in the water column with your other stuff or somewhat below it. On the Fingers meat rigs are often run much more near the bottom and frequently with frozen sawbellies rather than imitation bait. A lot of times folks run surface oriented stuff along with the meat rigs or even riggers up considerably higher. The right speed for the roll of the bait in that situation is very Touchy" to get right and maintain along with running spoons and that is what I was referring to Rick. The range of adjustment isn't any where near what it is for the stuff you are running (ie. the "fake" bait). In that respect I think the newer stuff is superior.

Edited February 2 by Sk8man