Anyone breed their own fishing bait?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
A

Anchovie

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 19, 2012
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Jersey Shore
I already culture red wigglers, but I mean minnows, clams, grass shrimp, etc. fishing season is here in cape may, and I'm looking to combine my love of fish keeping with my love of fish catching. I know I'm not catching a prize winning striper with something I bred in a 75 gal tank, but I CAN catch bait fish with something I breed. Anyone doing it?


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It doesn't really count but I used to order live crawfish from louisiana and have them shipped to me back when I lived in socal. I ate most of them but kept a bunch around in a kiddie pool and I caught huge bass and catfish off those all summer long. New york is a little pickier and requires your bait to be "certified" which means I can't do the same here:(
 
Anchovie said:
I'm in New Jersey


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I'm so sorry. Will keep you in our prayers. ;-)


To the OP - I'm into the organic gardening thing and do a lot of composting. A few years ago I discovered the wondrously useful critter known as a soldier fly. Their larvae (maggots) are BIG and once they are established in the compost bin they are ravenous. For example - a couple years ago I composted about 100 rotting pumpkins after halloween. I filled an 80 gallon compost bin (one of those city trash bins drilled with 500 holes) with cut up pumpkin and about three days later i had about 8" of compost and 8" of larvae. Then I refilled it and they consumed everything in 24 hours. It took less than ten days to turn a truckload of rotting pumpkins into a pile of awesome fishing bait and compost. These suckers are about an inch long and stay alive on the hook for a while - sunfish, crappie... any small fish will take them with greed and if you have a ton of them going in the bin it is pretty easy to collect a gallon of the damned things and throw out whole handfuls to chum up the action.

Side benefit... if you too have a teenage daughter, forget the shotgun and show her dates how quickly you can make 160 pounds of organic matter turn into maggot poop before he takes her out... makes the shotgun completely superfluous.
 
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