11-18-2003, 07:58 PM
[cool]Maggots have been used for centuries in Europe. They buy them by the pound, from growers who keep a constant supply feeding on rotting meat. In Britain, there is a lot of "match fishing", with long rods, light line and small hooks. The most often used chum and bait are maggots.
In the U.S., we are squeamish and hate the sound of maggot. That's why those who sell them call them Eurolarvae. Quite a few transplanted Europeans have come over here and demonstrated how effective their match fishing techniques are on our fishies. In many demonstrations, they have shown that almost all species of our American fish find maggots to be quite desirable...in open water as well as under the ice. Perch and panfish like bluegill find them especially appealing. But, even the snobbish trouts suck them in. Heck, they don't look much different than an unshucked caddis fly larva.
As a lot of folks have read or heard, you can now buy maggots in designer colors. Kinda like wiggling power bait. The colors attract the fish and the natural insect larva flavor seals the deal. A lot of anglers in our country have discovered that these nasty critters make good bait, and more and more Americans are raising and coloring their own maggots.
Strangely, I first tried maggots in Northern California. I had some left after an ice fishing trip to a small lake near Donner Pass one winter. The trout loved them. I brought them back to Sacramento and used them to tip hot pink flies in the American River. One morning I used up the rest of my plain vanilla maggots and caught over ten steelhead and several jack salmon...while most of the other guys in the same stretch of river did much worse.
Since then I have used them on bait bugs to finesse some very large bluegills and redear sunfish. During the winter, the crappies go for smaller offerings too, and tipping a microjig with a maggot sounds the dinnerbell.
There are some new strains of really big maggots available. But, a single small wiggly one, on an ice fly, is all you need for most ice fishing. After that, you have to conduct your own side by side evaluation as to whether you think they are any better than waxworms, mealworms, crawlers or whatever
Here's a link to an interesting site that not only touches on maggots, but has some good Q & A on other ice fishing topics.
[url "http://iceteam.com/askpowersticks.htm"]http://iceteam.com/askpowersticks.htm[/url]
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In the U.S., we are squeamish and hate the sound of maggot. That's why those who sell them call them Eurolarvae. Quite a few transplanted Europeans have come over here and demonstrated how effective their match fishing techniques are on our fishies. In many demonstrations, they have shown that almost all species of our American fish find maggots to be quite desirable...in open water as well as under the ice. Perch and panfish like bluegill find them especially appealing. But, even the snobbish trouts suck them in. Heck, they don't look much different than an unshucked caddis fly larva.
As a lot of folks have read or heard, you can now buy maggots in designer colors. Kinda like wiggling power bait. The colors attract the fish and the natural insect larva flavor seals the deal. A lot of anglers in our country have discovered that these nasty critters make good bait, and more and more Americans are raising and coloring their own maggots.
Strangely, I first tried maggots in Northern California. I had some left after an ice fishing trip to a small lake near Donner Pass one winter. The trout loved them. I brought them back to Sacramento and used them to tip hot pink flies in the American River. One morning I used up the rest of my plain vanilla maggots and caught over ten steelhead and several jack salmon...while most of the other guys in the same stretch of river did much worse.
Since then I have used them on bait bugs to finesse some very large bluegills and redear sunfish. During the winter, the crappies go for smaller offerings too, and tipping a microjig with a maggot sounds the dinnerbell.
There are some new strains of really big maggots available. But, a single small wiggly one, on an ice fly, is all you need for most ice fishing. After that, you have to conduct your own side by side evaluation as to whether you think they are any better than waxworms, mealworms, crawlers or whatever
Here's a link to an interesting site that not only touches on maggots, but has some good Q & A on other ice fishing topics.
[url "http://iceteam.com/askpowersticks.htm"]http://iceteam.com/askpowersticks.htm[/url]
[signature]