Raising your own panfish bait

John Watson

John Watson

Joined
Nov 29, 1998
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Anyone raise their own maggots for panfish bait? I tried but my maggots only got about a third the size of the ones you buy on line. Any suggestions? I figured rather than spend the money I would grow my own since table scraps are free but my results were a disappointment. I will use some I grew for aquarium fish food though.

John

photo shows maggots in relation to a dime



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No maggots, but I've got a worm bed and a catalpa tree. Do you freeze the maggots before they turn to flies?
 
I have purchased them on line and you keep them refrigerated to keep them dormant and stop them from going into the pupa stage. This was my first experiment with raising my own and I tossed most of them as they were too small for fishing. I spoke to someone from YouTube who raises them for lab work and she said that it could be because of the variety of fly that caused the maggot not to get to about an inch in length. She said that once they move off the food and try to go to ground to pupate they don't grow any and mine were leaving the food source.

John
 
Most of the pet stores and online dealers tend to sell wax worms, which are bettle lava and are larger. They look like fly lava ( maggots) and are mislabelled often.
 
Think I am going to try to grow wax worms. They seem easier and they don't eat gross stuff like fly larva. You tube has some good videos on wax worms and super worm farming.

John

By the way, my buddy's aquarium fish loved the maggots I gave him. They do make good fish food.
 
If you decide to try worms, search for the term Vermicomposting. Great and easy way to grow some worms (not huge ones but big enough for panfish).
 
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Maggots are probably the most common freshwater bait in the UK. The different species of fly produce different size maggots. When maggots turn into a chrysalis we call these casters.

As well as using the natural pink coloured maggot we also dye them different colours, with red and bronze been very popular.

You can freeze maggots, this obviously kills them but when fishing over a silty bottom it means they won't burrow themselves away!

If you have a secluded fishing spot, then why not tie a chicken carcass onto a branch that over hangs the water. Flies will come to lay their eggs and after a few days maggots will keep falling out of the carcass into the water. The fish will congregate underneath for the free offerings.
 
Well, I purchased 500 waxworms and tried them out today and got to say they outfished red worms hands down. We caught and released probably 75 bream today with some being very nice size. Had a ball catching them on ultra lite rigs. I plan on trying to raise some on my own. According to YouTube they are easy to raise and they don't smell bad like trying to grow fly maggots.

John

One of the nicer perch, I think it is what we call a goggleye.

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Nice bluegill. I have caught 50+ many days with a tub of 50 wax worms bought at PetSmart....
 
Pretty easy to raise. The substrate is oatmeal baby cereal, honey and glycerin with some bee wax shavings. Get cheap honey, the glycerin from the drug store. Put a half box or so of the oatmeal with enough honey and a little glycerin to make the oatmeal moist but not wet. Kneed it with your hands. Place it in a tall container with small holes drilled in the lid for air. Place 30 or so wax worms in the container and place them in a warm place. I put mine in the utility room with the washer/dryer, it isn't air conditioned in there. Put some accordion folded wax paper in the container for the adults to lay eggs on.

Takes about 6 weeks for them to go into pupa stage, mature into moths and lay their eggs.

A lot cheaper than ordering them off the internet, which is were I got the original worms to start the colony.
 
Meal worms (the darkling beetle) are easy to raise. You just need a rubbermaid container with some air holes in the lid, some oat bran, and a chunk of potato (change about once per month). The population will increase about 10 times every year.

Meal worms are availabe from most pet stores. They get to be about 3/8 of an inch in size as larvae.

I use meal worms for ice fishing brook trout in local lakes around here but any panfish will go for them.
 
bcornelis said:
Meal worms (the darkling beetle) are easy to raise. You just need a rubbermaid container with some air holes in the lid, some oat bran, and a chunk of potato (change about once per month). The population will increase about 10 times every year.

Meal worms are availabe from most pet stores. They get to be about 3/8 of an inch in size as larvae.

I use meal worms for ice fishing brook trout in local lakes around here but any panfish will go for them.
Click to expand...

and they taste GREAT!
 
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