Thread: Bait, How do you raise your own?

Originally Posted by cricket george

Raising minnows is easy too. If you own a farm or have a family friend that does then you are in luck. My family has a 1/4 acre cattle watering pond that stays around 3-4' during the summer.

This is exactly how my dad raised minnows. His uncle had a farm, and three or four of the ponds were stocked with minnows (shiners, in this case.) He had a seemingly limitless supply.

Here is something I learned sort of by accident. In warmer months in the south, pick up a bag of "grounds for your garden" used coffee grounds at most starbucks for free. Find a shady spot in your yard. Add enough water that they are good and moist. That's it. You will have hundreds to thousands of soldier fly larvae growing in the mix in a few weeks. These are much bigger than "normal" maggots, i.e. up to an inch longer or more. Bluegill love them.

For the hardiest worms that can handle 33F to 90F+, just collect the fat, native earthworms that get driven out of the ground during spring rains. I talking about the south where the bigger night crawlers do not do so well. These worms are not as sensitive as red wigglers. You have to have a "cool" period during the summer where you don't feed them.

My red wiggler bed has loads of soldier fly larvae and they are VERY agressive when it comes to feeding on the compost. The sunfish will feed on the larvae,but I have found they are a little hesitant to eat the larvae. The wigglers are a different story. I frankly would prefer not to have the soldier fly larvae in my bed as they consume large quantities of fruit and vegetable matter that the wigglers would normally eat.

Originally Posted by Tony from Oak Point

Here is something I learned sort of by accident. In warmer months in the south, pick up a bag of "grounds for your garden" used coffee grounds at most starbucks for free. Find a shady spot in your yard. Add enough water that they are good and moist. That's it. You will have hundreds to thousands of soldier fly larvae growing in the mix in a few weeks. These are much bigger than "normal" maggots, i.e. up to an inch longer or more. Bluegill love them.

Thanks for the tip, Tony. The last time you posted about soldier flies, I spent an hour or so researching them on the web. I have not had the chance to grow my own yet. I did actually used soldier fly larva once before. A friend of mine had some and let me try them. I did not catch much that day, but the area I was fishing wasn't exactly loaded with bluegill. I'd really like to try them out in some of my favorite gill ponds.