By simply visiting your nearest supermarket you can find a vast range of tinned or pickled foods which will catch carp, barbel and many other coarse fish. These inexpensive products are sitting there, just waiting for you to experiment with them.
Two of the top everyday baits are canned sweet corn, and luncheon meat. Though there are many others to try, these are undoubtedly the best. All coarse love to fish feed on soft, yellow sweet corn. Their size makes them perfect for match angling, because they can be easily hooked inside with small hooks. Simply put once piece on your hook and gently cast out so it doesn't fly off. Your can also use sweet corn in your groundbait feed, to match your hook baits and get the fish in your area to feed on the sweet corn with confidence.
Tinned Meat as Carp Bait
The best tinned food to use is luncheon meat. This canned meat is much tougher than standard tinned ham. If you really want to use ham, then you can make the ham harder simply by leaving it out of the tin so the air can attack it, preferably in a sunny spot; it will harden quickly. You'll need to cut the ham into small or large cubes depending on the hook size and the method you wish to fish. Luncheon meat is specimen bait which tends to attract larger species of coarse fish like carp and barbell. There are two methods, you can hook directly or hair rig the cube.
Both tinned ham and luncheon meat work perfectly well, but you can flavour these baits to make them more attractive. For sweet corn, you can add any sweet flavour. Strawberry is the most popular, and it makes red pieces of corn that gives off an even sweeter sweet. This can give you a new edge when fishing and help produce more fish.
Highly Effective, Cheap Coarse Fish Bait
The same applies to luncheon meat. By making a sweet meat taste or - as any barbel expert will advise you - by putting all the cubes into a plastic bag and then adding curry powder, you will create a devastating savoury bait, attracting specimen fish in rivers the world over. By simply experimenting with each tinned product you can get a clear understanding as to what's best in each fishing situation. Go in the supermarket and look in the tinned ham and vegetable section.
Once you have found a winning bait, you can take it one step further by adding flavour attractors. Fish both the natural and flavoured baits along side each other to find the winning method on the day, never be shy about experimenting; you'll be surprised what fish will eat! This simple and most cost effective approach can make all the difference to your catch results.