Maggots

[muftyboy]

Evening you lot.

Just a question for you experienced maggot users.

If you are doing a long session , say 3-4 days and you have a couple of gallon of maggots with you what's the best way to make sure they stay in top condition?.

Even over night my maggots always go all sweaty.

Cheers.

[commonly]

If you put them in an airtight bag they go into a sleep type state, take as much air out as poss, then just tip out what you want for the day in your Maggi box, they come around in a few minutes. keep the bag sealed. Not sure how long you can keep them like that, but I think they'll be good for about a week. 

[oscsha]

There's only one way and that is to keep them cold , decent cool box with lots of ice packs .

[yonny]

Oscsha is right. Unless you keep them cold they will sweat.

Sweating, within reason, doesn't bother me that much. Imo the carp are attracted by the excretions/ammonia given off by the wrigglers. When I use maggots I'll use quite a lot - at least a gallon a night. I'll happily buy 2 gallons at a time and by the second night they're clearly sweating their nuts off but still all alive. I'll never buy more than 2 gallons in one hit as by the third night you can see they're starting to turn/die.

[elmoputney]

Couldn't you add a bit of basemix into them this would keep them dryer and also they may start being more nutritious ?

I've never really used them for proper carp fishing tbh do people spod out gallons at once or little and often ? I've heard of people chucking out gallons at once but that seems mental to me 

[oscsha]

3 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

Couldn't you add a bit of basemix into them this would keep them dryer and also they may start being more nutritious ?

I've never really used them for proper carp fishing tbh do people spod out gallons at once or little and often ? I've heard of people chucking out gallons at once but that seems mental to me 

When you buy them they should come with a mix of maize flour and saw dust over them , the basemix may just clump together once wet from the sweat produced.Once they start to sweat its a thankless task trying to stop it unless you can cool them down , spliting them into smaller containers and placing the conatiners in bowls of water can help , a metal container works best which is why the old timers preferred the old metal bait tins.

You could take some plain crumb ground bait so that if they do turn you can crush some of the casters and add them to the groundbait maybe along with some crushed hemp , this will fizz with some casters floating up to different degrees . (worked for the great Ivan Marks !) 

[yonny]

6 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

Couldn't you add a bit of basemix into them this would keep them dryer and also they may start being more nutritious ?

Doesn't work mate, they just go all pasty. I've done it with GLM powders, liver powders etc. It's the heat that makes them sweat. Only cooling will prevent it.

7 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

I've never really used them for proper carp fishing tbh do people spod out gallons at once or little and often ? I've heard of people chucking out gallons at once but that seems mental to me 

I'll generally give the spot one big hit for the night ahead (at least a gallon plus whatever else I'm using with them) but that's because the lower stock waters I fish do not tend to respond well to the constant disturbance of the little/often approach.

When the fishing is tough there is no better method imo. I've had sessions where I've been forced to top up in the night such is their effectiveness. When they're bang on it you can get through gallons and gallons.

[ouchthathurt]

I've used maggots quite a bit last winter and had a cracking few sessions on them. I found that it was best to split them into smaller quantities as a lot of maggots all wriggling together creates warmth that caused sweating. Keeping those that were not for immediate use in airtight bags with the air squeezed out put them into suspended animation and keeping them in a cool bag allowed them to be stored for a week session quite comfortably. When exposed to air, they soon woke up again. 

To be honest, I always had better success using a small pva bag of maggots and a magaligner rig rather than spombing the granny out of it. Most pva bags will take several handfuls of maggots easily which when placed on known feeding areas, produced bites far more regularly than a huge carpet of germs. Usually, for a 2night session 2-3pints were ample. 

I had carp to 37lb+ on pva bagged maggots and a magaligner/medusa rig arrangement. 

[elmoputney]

2 hours ago, yonny said:

Doesn't work mate, they just go all pasty. I've done it with GLM powders, liver powders etc. It's the heat that makes them sweat. Only cooling will prevent it.

I'll generally give the spot one big hit for the night ahead (at least a gallon plus whatever else I'm using with them) but that's because the lower stock waters I fish do not tend to respond well to the constant disturbance of the little/often approach.

When the fishing is tough there is no better method imo. I've had sessions where I've been forced to top up in the night such is their effectiveness. When they're bang on it you can get through gallons and gallons.

I can see why they work just thought a gallon seems a lot at once and the bottom would look like a maggot graveyard, rather than little and often where you would have regular wrigglers, for a while, 

[emmcee]

3 hours ago, yonny said:

Doesn't work mate, they just go all pasty. I've done it with GLM powders, liver powders etc. It's the heat that makes them sweat. Only cooling will prevent it.

I'll generally give the spot one big hit for the night ahead (at least a gallon plus whatever else I'm using with them) but that's because the lower stock waters I fish do not tend to respond well to the constant disturbance of the little/often approach.

When the fishing is tough there is no better method imo. I've had sessions where I've been forced to top up in the night such is their effectiveness. When they're bang on it you can get through gallons and gallons.

Exactly how I've used them in the past, normally a gallon straight in and then top up as and when. 

And spot on, when the fishing is tough it's one of the best methods there is. 

[emmcee]

39 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

I can see why they work just thought a gallon seems a lot at once and the bottom would look like a maggot graveyard, rather than little and often where you would have regular wrigglers, for a a while

A gallon of maggots is nothing really. Add into the equation perch, roach, tench and bream and it soon goes. Some will be scoffed on the drop by silvers etc. And I dread to think how fast a 20,30 or 40lb carp can demolish a gallon of maggots. In reality a 10kg bag of boilie laid out on the floor isn't a lot of bait, especially if you have half a dozen 20's or bigger munching. 

[yonny]

40 minutes ago, elmoputney said:

a gallon seems a lot at once

It's a lot of food items for sure but in terms of weight is next to nowt. A small group of big carp will hoover that up in no time.

[emmcee]

Just now, yonny said:

It's a lot of food items for sure but in terms of weight is next to nowt. A small group of big carp will hoover that up in no time.

Exactly,  no different to a bucket of hemp. A lot of individual food items but can be polished off in minutes by a group of hungry carp. 

[oscsha]

Its only 8 pints , good night down the pub LOL

[framey]

1 hour ago, oscsha said:

Its only 8 pints , good night down the pub LOL

And probably smell the same as well lol

cold and clean is the way I store them 

take the air out and you can get a good month out of them I use a vacuum pack machine to suck the air out

Edited September 25, 2019 by framey

[oscsha]

They'll die if frozen ! You need a fridge not a freezer .

[salokcinnodrog]

2 hours ago, Dannygooner said:

Maggots are the bane of my life recently. I do a lot on the rivers hunting all kinds of fish. I also do not live near a tackle shop. I’ve tried buying bulk and even keeping for two days but they look in a sorry state by then. I refuse to keep them in the kitchen freezer aswel before someone suggests this lol. I am going to get a little chest freezer for the shed though. How long will they survive for in the freezer? I was fishing a lake with lots of hungry carp in the other day. I was looking for the big Rudd and perch that frequent there. I had to drop to size 20 hook single maggot and the carp were still smashing me up 😖. 

Overnight in the freezer and they could well be still alive next day, just very slow until they warm up.

 

I used to use a lot of maggots, so here is my advice:

Buy fresh maggots from the tackle shop. The newer, fresher they are the larger the food spot is. Older maggots have almost no food spot, and will soon turn to casters.

When you get back riddle the maggots, take off all the sawdust sold with them. Put them into a maggot tub with fresh clean sawdust or maize meal.

If you buy a pint of maggots, put them in a two pint bait tub. Basically for the amount of maggots you buy, double the size of the bait tub.

 

Keep your maggots in the fridge, and riddle them every day. This removes dead skins and casters, and check the sawdust/maize meal.

 

There is a 'but' to fresh maggots, in winter, especially on rivers, older maggots wriggle more on the hook.

 

 

[yonny]

6 hours ago, salokcinnodrog said:

When you get back riddle the maggots, take off all the sawdust sold with them. Put them into a maggot tub with fresh clean sawdust or maize meal.

Keep your maggots in the fridge, and riddle them every day. This removes dead skins and casters, and check the sawdust/maize meal.

I buy my maggots direct from the maggot farm that supplies the surrounding area/tackle shops. I actually now request mine with no cleaning or riddling whatsoever - straight from the line - and just the tiniest bit of dust. They're absolutely disgusting and stink to high heaven - which imo is exactly what you want for fishing.

Most guys love a nice clean riddled wriggler but in terms of effectiveness I do not believe it's the way to go.

[snowmanstevo]

You can freeze up to 48hrs and they’ll come back to life 😱😱😱

I use a lot of dead maggots when using them for carp with just a pint of wrigglers for hookbaits 😬

[yonny]

10 minutes ago, snowmanstevo said:

dead maggots

I don't think they're half as effective as live ones Stevo!

[snowmanstevo]

31 minutes ago, yonny said:

I don't think they're half as effective as live ones Stevo!

Probably not,mate. But I’ve found once they become pre occupied with em dead or alive will do. Always live on the hook tho. 😬

[muftyboy]

Thanks for all the input guys.

I always thought that the sweating made them off putting to fish.

As I will be buying them and then going straight to the lake I think I'm just gonna use as big a bucket as I can and try to keep them as cool and aired as possible and see how I go.

To be fair it will probably be quite cold weather wise when I start using them anyway.

Cheers.

 

[jimmy_c]

On 24/09/2019 at 18:38, commonly said:

If you put them in an airtight bag they go into a sleep type state, take as much air out as poss, then just tip out what you want for the day in your Maggi box, they come around in a few minutes. keep the bag sealed. Not sure how long you can keep them like that, but I think they'll be good for about a week. 

i would second this advise, maggots go into suspended animation without oxygen, they don't die, but just switch off and stop metabolising so i don't think they'll be sweating much, the great thing about this is that they also stop wriggling so can't, this would make them safer in a cool bag too.

[Machali]

https://www.urbanbait.co.uk/latest-news/maggot-fishing-for-carp-in-winter

Anyone tryed it?

[yonny]

14 minutes ago, Machali said:

Anyone tryed it?

Yes mate.

I started taking my own powders to my maggot supplier to use instead of the maize/dust they offer. I tried liver powder, GLM, and various grounbaits.

I found that nothing was more effective than un-touched maggots. In fact I actually started asking for my maggots un-cleaned, straight from the trays (my supplier is a maggot farm). The dirtier and stinkier the better imo.

The article says "as soon as they start sweating, they start getting Ammonia all over them. The fish just veer off them because that Ammonia is a really bad chemical, they really don’t like it".

That is a load of tosh imo. Maggots secrete various substances/chemicals including ammonia as part of their natural processes, this imo is part of what makes them so attractive to carp. No processed food/bait can match these natural processes in terms of attraction imo. All those substances/chemicals (which I'm pretty sure are stuffed full of AA's), together with the tiny electrical signals given off by live maggots, are what make them so unbeatable in terms of bait.

I do not believe maggots can be made more attractive by adding anything.