yellow door 1

Thanks Kelp and Doobie this sand and bucket method sounds very doable - might just get a batch on the go.

Doobie - how long did you leave the chicken under the sand after the flies had laid their eggs.
 
 
 

How much sand do you put on top of the wrapped newspaper?
I probably had about 6" or so of sand on top (and underneath) and would think that is too much for the gents to get up top.

The gents should show signs at the top of the sand when they are ready, the time factor is the temperature in warm weather 4 or 5 days in colder weather can take as long as a week or more, wait for the wriggle marks on the sand, try to keep them in a warm area, I keep mine in the tool shed it keeps wind off of them an the iron shed warms up quickly when the sun rises. in very hot weather the shed can be too hot therefore look for a cooler spot.

I have now returned to breeding my own gents for 1 pure reason - twice now, I have purchased a container of long life gents and both within a 2 weeks were 3/4 dead.
Each was purchased from a different tackle shop and I'm not sure how 'old' the stock was or for what ever reason, but at $6 a tub for something that should 'last' for say 2 months, I was annoyed.
I used to use fish frames/head but agree the smell is pretty bad, and to also get the gents out from within the heads was difficult also.
Tip: use disposable gloves to help protect hands from absorbing the smell  
Now, instead of fish remains, I use a couple of chicken thighs.  I find the smell is not as bad, but is still smelly.
Someone also mentioned to me recently, just like kelp as mentioned, to bury the 'food' within some sheets of newspaper under dry sand in a bucket.
I tried this about 3 weeks ago (with sand in bottom of bucket, then the 'ingredients', then more sand) and confirm there is no smell in the air during the process - unless you stick your nose real close.  But did notice some blowies still hanging around the bucket, a couple which even laid some babies on top of the sand.
I didn't have any gents rise to the top of the sand, probably because I put plenty of sand to making sure to cover it right up.
The bonus is, the gents are much bigger than purchased ones.
Personally I wouldn't bother going to the trouble of making a maggot trap bucket - too much hassle.

a good method to breed maggots to eliminate the smell is after the blow wrap the blown fish or meat in 5 or six layers of news paper place in the bottom of a bucket then fill the bucket with clean dry beach sand, when you see wriggle tracks on the top of the sand it is time to sieve the sand you will have clean white maggots , I the pour   boiling water over the left over news paper to kill any remaining maggots then bury it deep in the garden makes good fertiliser

Sounds like a good idea
 

Yeah when Rex Hunt said the dominant hand should be on the rod, I made the switch and havent regretted it.

re the soundtrack - I first heard his skills the other day and thought it suited the Swampy feel I was going for🙂
 
 

Yeah those drones would save a few hours searching for activity.

As kids - We thought we had our burley game sussed by asking the local baker for old bread - getting tubs of bread crumb is next level🙂

Amazing - brings back memories - wish drones were around back in the old AAA days. I remember months out before the freshwater state championships, we would head down to Tip Top Bakery at Maylands and get all of the breadcrumbs that were destined for scrap. Im talking tubs full of the stuff. Then weekend after weekend, we'd head to our chosen spot, spend the night making burley bombs, and literally bombard the backwater. Did this up until a week or so before the comp - and then on comp morning - arriving to the location it would look like a bubbling spa bath of monster carp. Youd not only be catching them all day, youd have them swimming between your legs. The only down side was carrying the bags of fish out of the swamp to the car - sometimes it was a very long walk!

Yeah those bow and arrow casts can come in handy in dense cover - and they are pretty accurate over short distances
 
 

Yeah when Rex Hunt said the dominant hand should be on the rod, I made the switch and havent regretted it.

re the soundtrack - I first heard his skills the other day and thought it suited the Swampy feel I was going for🙂
 
 

Yeah when Rex Hunt said the dominant hand should be on the rod, I made the switch and havent regretted it.

re the soundtrack - I first heard his skills the other day and thought it suited the Swampy feel I was going for🙂
 
 

The little clips are pretty strong but some people have said they have had trouble with them opening up - part of me thinks they didnt shut the clip correctly. -  but their could be other factors at play. Rocks catching on the clip under strain and pushing the little keeper in and opening the snap could cause them to fail early. But its never happened to me
 
 

I started using clips when fishing for Jewies coz I like to throw 3 different lures at a spot before moving on to the next - and I dont like casting with long leaders - so after a few spots, my leader would be getting short after tying 3 uni knots at each.

Then I started just using clips for all my lures - the only time I dont use them is on very delicate lures like 35mm plastic vibes and little stick minnows that need to flutter on the drop.

And they do have a habit of catching weed in very weedy spots so I dont use them with little weedless presentations.

I tend to chase everything but bream these days so i dont pay as much attention to finesse as I used to. But with that said - I still use them on 4cm bibbed minnows and blades.

I'm no guru but making the switch to clips didnt effect my catch rates. And it made it a alot easier to change lures in a heart beat. If you are lazy like me - using clips can be the difference between changing a lure and sticking with a lure not ideally suited to the cast you are about to make.


 

ARe you wearing orange undies when you fish? - that could be the problem😉.

ARe you wearing orange undies when you fish? - that could be the problem😉.

yeah - if they're going to eat a fish with a lead head and a hook sticking out of its back - A slightly hunched back probably wont be the final straw😉

I recently went through a rather exhaustive search on what superglue people use to attached ZMANS to jigheads.
The glue is to stop fish yanking your plastic off the hook or pulling it off the keeper - or "Getting Pantsed".
This is a serious issue when getting 100's of hits that dont hook up, while chasing small snapper.

Here's what I learnt

1 - most people have never heard of using superglue with ZMANS
2 - those that had, like loctite gel super glue
3 - Most people use TT Headlock jigheads with ZMANS and claim getting "pantsed" isnt an issue
4 - Some claim getting pansted is still an issue with TT head locks

but the biggest revelation was this method that doesnt require glue and will work with any jighead - even those that arent specifically designed for Zmans.

They run a hook through the zman and pull it over the eye of the hook.

https://m.facebook.com/video_redirect/?src=https%3A%2F%2Fvideo.fsyd3-1.fna.fbcdn.net%2Fv%2Ft42.9040-2%2F53220768_2026084804170678_2193141491113656320_n.mp4%3F_nc_cat%3D109%26efg%3DeyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InN2ZV9zZCJ9%26_nc_eui2%3DAeFzUhCiWECAqVuxy576_WYjCcdczq_tmVXDc1979xsV6_Lj1AmC4iKAyQMaIo67-UcQwOO2gm8qbSwWSR2IRYrKxlTk0I82OAhWSev7DhtLkw%26_nc_ht%3Dvideo.fsyd3-1.fna%26oh%3Def80a7b29be7264ad2892f2d00276a1f%26oe%3D5C84B305&source=misc&id=579318495873707&refid=52&__tn__=FH-R

Yeah we used to work the bay rockwalls with SX40's for the pinks which is alot of fun - but the versatility of plastics is hard to beat on the pinkies
 

Yeah I'm the opposite when it comes to colours - I just pick one and stick with it. It takes a fair bit for me to change these days - I used to be mad for it but now I just cant be stuffed😉

If they arent hitting little bait fish profiles I will switched to a worm if I'm near some worm beds but usually I just put my faith in bait fish imitations.

When I do change plastics its usually to a different weight head, profile or hook size.

But I do carry a few pre-rigged in a little tackle box in my pocket in case the toadies move in.