Meat Rig Question

[TheLynnAnn]

Over the past week I have heard about guys doing better on meat than anything else. Currently, I do not run meat because I really don't know how and if it was really needed in my arsenal. However, after the past week I am beginning to wonder if I should give it a shot. But before I go all out, I have a few questions.

1. In your opinion, what is the best brand? And do I need to buy the flasher, fly, and meat head combo as seen on John King's website, rather than using my own flasher or spin doctor?

2. Where or what is the best place to buy Herron strips?

3. Can these be used in combination with spoons, flasher flies, and plugs? Because I heard these require a different speed.

Thanks to anyone who will reply with knowledge of meat fishing. This site has been extremely helpful to novice fisherman like myself, thank you.

[SeaCatMich]

1. In your opinion, what is the best brand? And do I need to buy the flasher, fly, and meat head combo as seen on John King's website, rather than using my own flasher or spin doctor?

Initially I tried some other brands of meat heads, but then tried the Big Weenie heads and have used them very successfully for 4 seasons. Maybe others work just as well but the shape of the BW heads seem to work well with very little tuning of the meat inserted.

As for the flasher, I have used the matched setups and also mixed and matched with success both ways. I do try to keep UV heads and flashers together but otherwise typical color pairings work with a white flasher/paddle kind of being a good base. I'm also a big fan of the "black mamba" rig and its variants. I do prefer the bigger flashers/paddles -- 10"+ with meat.

2. Where or what is the best place to buy Herron strips?

Kind of depends on where you are located. At least on the Michigan shore almost all of the tackle shops now have meat. I have seen Earie Dearie and Dream Weaver brands and both work.

3. Can these be used in combination with spoons, flasher flies, and plugs? Because I heard these require a different speed.

Yes. While I have seen a certain seller of the meat rigs advocates running just a couple of meat rigs, I have found that I will have up to half of my lines with meat and the rest with spoons, plugs and flasher/fly. Sometimes the meat isn't working but most often get fish on a variety of lures and often have doubles and triples on the variety of lures. Most of the time my wire diver(s) have flashers/meat and then a copper and a rigger. Depending on what's working I then change lures to what is getting hits with more or less meat in the spread. Most of the time I run 2.5 mph on my X4 +/- .2 mph