# Advice on how to farm/grow "Gents"



## kiwipea (Jun 17, 2008)

Any one out there with a practical way for a suburban resident to farm or grow nice fat gents (maggots) suitable for bait :?: :?: 
Want to get out and catch a few mullet, mainly for use as crab bait and getting a bit annoyed at paying $7 to $8 a kg and up to $11 kg for ocean mullet from the local fish outlets when last year it sold for $2 to $3 kg
thanx in advance ;-)

kp


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2010)

I grow my own occasionally in the backyard. I use fish heads, about 1/2kg in total. I put them on a piece of folded newspaper. This is placed in a bucket and a larger bucket is inverted over the first bucket. This keeps it dry and keeps the smell down.

After 24hr to 48 hrs (depending on temperature and amount of flies around) the fish should be flyblown. I then wrap the newspaper and fish heads in 3 separate sheets of newspaper. This in then put back in the bucket.

In about 3 or 4 days time the gents will be almost ready and the fish heads all eaten. I put bran in the bottom of the bucket and within a day of two the gents will make their way through the newspaper and into the bran. The newspaper and residual fish heads can be thrown away, leaving the gents and bran.

Timing is everything. In hotter weather things will happen faster. If you wrap the fish heads too early, the gents will have too much food and will not leave the newspaper. If you leave the fish heads too long, then too many flies will lay and there will not be enough food and the resulting gents will all be too small.


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## kiwipea (Jun 17, 2008)

Thanks Kelvin for a quick and sensible reply, thinks that is something I can do here without too much hassle.
My next few fish heads will be put to good use.
Just trust our NSW flies behave same as your SA ones :lol:

kp


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## haynsie (May 26, 2008)

My grandfather had a similar method when I was a kid.

He used to place a small tin can inside a bigger one (something like a 1 liter paint can inside a 4 liter paint can). The small can would be full of fish heads, and in the larger can there would be a couple of inches of bran. He would then leave the can outside until it was flyblown, then place the lid on the large can. After a few days the maggots would make their way out of the small can and into the bran and he would transfer them into a jar and keep them in the fridge (much to the entire family's disgust!!) where they would keep for months.

I like the newspaper idea also, and as Kelvin said, the timing is everything. I seem to remember my grandmother only allowing him to "breed" them down at the family beach shack, far away from the house in the sand dunes.. :lol:

Cheers

Tim


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## Zed (Sep 18, 2006)

I'm a little dense, but can't you just use bread for mullet? 
It works around here. Bread and sabiki flies and you're in mullet for daze.


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## kiwipea (Jun 17, 2008)

Zed said:


> I'm a little dense, but can't you just use bread for mullet?
> It works around here. Bread and sabiki flies and you're in mullet for daze.


Been there, done that but our local mullet are pretty switched on and get stuck into all the burley bread and leave the sabiki hooks with lil bread balls untouched. Word is that using maggots is a different ball game and hook up rate on the sabiki rig is a lot higher.

Thanks ken for link to using rock melon rather than fish heads, thinks the neighbors may appreciate the fact on the odour being much better

kp


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## john316 (Jan 15, 2009)

kiwi... as much as I like the info available on the net I still like books. I found an old book on coarse fishing by and old Pomme competition angler who had migrated to Aus. There were heaps of tips on aspects of coarse fishing that were either transferable or adaptable to Australian fish and conditions including a chapter on breeding gents in suburbia. One of those "I put it somewhere safe" moments and if I can find it I will forward on the more relevant info but it also included little snippets like... "when storing gents in the fridge, make sure that the rest of the family is aware as this can help to avoid disaster".

cheers

John


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## andybear (Jan 15, 2006)

A little red food colouring in the bran, makes them look more appetising.Pink maggots! Big bream love 'em 

Cheers all Andybear  

When I was a lad, in England, our local sweet shop (lolly shop) used to sell gents. We had no idea that these were the offspring of flys, or what they were about, but you could get a quarter of a pound of dolly mixtures, and a bag of gents, both in identical small paper bags, for a shilling. This did lead to strange little accidents from time to time, and I admit, I have held dolly mixture, and maggots in my mouth, whilst charging the hook with bait. :shock: :shock:


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## danh124 (Sep 29, 2008)

hey kiwi i have had excelent results with mullet in BW by using a small float with three tiny hooks rigged up underneath with bread as bait.
May be easyer than breding maggots


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## kiwipea (Jun 17, 2008)

danh124 said:


> hey kiwi i have had excelent results with mullet in BW by using a small float with three tiny hooks rigged up underneath with bread as bait.
> May be easyer than breding maggots


Jeez Dan, don't know what i'm doing wrong, fished for 4hrs + today on BW, half a loaf of bread and bloody mullet feeding off the bread and jumpin all around ( a lot of poddy's but plenty of big fellas amongst them too)
had a sabiki rig our with lil bread balls on the hooks, started out with a big ball float but the changed to a smaller ball float in thinking maybe the big float was the problem why I was getting no hits. 
Total sum for the mornings effort, no mullet but one big fat blue swimmer crab from my crab line  
Have set up a "gents" farm so will see how that fares out

kp

PS: Yes john point taken, I do have some lil plastic containers with BAIT written on them
Andy ????? pink maggots :shock: I did not think bream were that way inclined


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## Slazmo (Oct 18, 2010)

I remember in the old country there was a maggot breeder box that has usually a dead deer or gypo that was positioned out the middle of the lake(s) that had impoundment fish (usually carp), the flies would get to the carcas, maggots would propegate and then drop into the water and feed the fish untill another carcas was needed...

Best invention ever! I totally understand why people to this day are still using maggots... Candy for fish I rekon.


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## anselmo (Aug 26, 2008)

I used to use liver that was allowed to be blown then pressed lightly between two panes of glass and suspended over a bucket of bran
the gents eat the liver away and drop into the bran
minimal smell and mess at the end

Of course, now I buy them over here - easier and cheaper

Nick


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## Zed (Sep 18, 2006)

> Jeez Dan, don't know what i'm doing wrong, fished for 4hrs + today on BW, half a loaf of bread and bloody mullet feeding off the bread and jumpin all around ( a lot of poddy's but plenty of big fellas amongst them too) had a sabiki rig our with lil bread balls on the hooks, started out with a big ball float but the changed to a smaller ball float in thinking maybe the big float was the problem why I was getting no hits.
> Total sum for the mornings effort, no mullet but one big fat blue swimmer crab from my crab line
> Have set up a "gents" farm so will see how that fares out


That's rough. My advice would be to limit the amount of bread in the water. Just like chumming for tuna or any other fish you want to keep them there, but not feed them. And what are the colors of your sabiki flies? If there's any flash, that might put them off, since the bread is just opaque. Another trick, if you put a float on both ends of the sabiki rig, the flies will be suspended at the surface. You aren't casting too far, so just the weight of the two floats [bobbers as we call them] will be enough to sling it into the frenzy.

Good luck.


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## Randell (Oct 12, 2010)

Hi kp,
"My next few fish heads will be put to good use.
Just trust our NSW flies behave same as your SA ones :lol:"

you can use a small tin of tuna cat food , I grow maggots by accident..........
randell


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## kiwipea (Jun 17, 2008)

Ok the "gents" farm is up and running and about to enter the next stage. A flathead frame and head is flyblown and lil maggots have hatched so about to wrap package up for few days then will crumble up a weetbix as bran and await the emerging fat gents.

Couple of (maybe dumb) question tho, does the little house fly have small maggots and the big blowfly have bigger maggots. Also bloody ants have joined the farm, do ants and maggots get by together of does one eat the other.

Been an interesting exercise in watching a bloody big blowfly guarding the hatchery and chasing away little house flys that dare venture too close.

kp


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## mango (Nov 23, 2010)

I have had great success as mentioned above with liver.
There are many variation on this theme.
When i was involved in the Coarse Match scene in OZ in the ealry to late 90's i often bred them by the pint!
My method:
Purchase one large bucket with resealable lid. Barnacle Bills or similar often have a stack that they will sell for a few bucks each.
Drill 20 or so 3mm holes in the lid.
Take a slice of liver about the same size as your hand (including your fingers). Slit it half way through every 10mm.
Add a little red food colouring to the slits if red gents/maggots are required. They will digest this with the meat and colour internally.
Lay liver on a good 3 layers of news paper in the bucket on a shallow layer of sawdust or bran and leave for a day or so with the lid open.
When you can see you have a good blow on the liver wrap it in the newspaper and cover in a good few inches of saw dust or bran.
Place lid on tight and give it a week or a little longer depending on the size of the gents/maggots.
Clean the liver in the bran to remove the gents/maggots. Stir up the bran/sawdust a little to clean the gents/maggots.
Tricky bit is seperation from the sawdust/bran.
The bulk can be seprated by hand. the rest can be seprated with a mesh seive. I use purpose made ones for 1 pint maggot boxes from the uk but any steel mesh with about 3-4mm holes will do.
Place mesh over container and place gents/maggots along with remaining sawdust on top. 
The lil critters will work themselves through the mesh and land nice and clean in the container with just enough sawdust to stop them sweating..

Great fun producing your own baits. 
Have fun, Mango


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