Anyone know the difference between.....

[peter crabtree]

....gozzers and sour brans?

 

[Mark Wintle]

Gozzers are bred on meat eg pigeon or chicken. Sour brans are bred on a mixture of bran soaked in milk that's gone sour. Different flies and different maggots though both ideally soft.

 

[S-Kippy]

Does anybody bother with all that nowadays ?

 

[904_cannon]

In my day of breeding my own, gozzers were from the bluebottle fly with the bigger ones selected for the hook-bait, and mostly used when bream fishing at Lochmaben. The ones fed on fish were said to be floaters. Although I'm sure there will be others more qualified tham me.

Threats of leaving from the wife put an end to that period of my life.

 

[xenon]

"Threats of leaving from the wife put an end to that period of my life"-
I can believe that-used to help my Dad as a kid and still recall the stench (this was no mere smell) as you unwrapped the chicken from the newspaper almost making me heave. Grim indeed.

 

[peter crabtree]

Does anybody bother with all that nowadays ?

I've heard wobbled gozzers are catching those Z's down Dorking way ...

 

[904_cannon]

Does anybody bother with all that nowadays ?

I don't for sure, but I always get the blame whenever there are bluebottles in the house

 

[cg74]

Does anybody bother with all that nowadays ?

I'd say pretty much no.


But in answer to the question; gozzers come from bluebottles that feed and lay their eggs on raw meat, never heard of "sour brans."

 

[S-Kippy]

I've heard wobbled gozzers are catching those Z's down Dorking way ...

Well nothing else is....been deader than a dead thing since mid December. I am hoping the place stays frozen for a fortnight then it turns mild and a thaw sets in.Maybe then the damned things might actually feel a bit hungry.

I've very nearly had enough of the place. I need to fish a river.

---------- Post added at 21:05 ---------- Previous post was at 21:02 ----------

I don't for sure, but I always get the blame whenever there are bluebottles in the house

Me too...but indoors its a more than reasonable shout.I get blamed for them outside too which I think is a bit unfair. I can't be held directly responsible for every fly in Buckinghamshire but I often am.

 

[barbelboi]

Had a Bluebottle crawling about on the windscreen of the car last week - can't think how it got there, shows you how mild it is (as I said to the wife):wh
Jerry

PS And I thought gozzers was a footballer

 

[dezza]

Gozzers are bred on meat eg pigeon or chicken. Sour brans are bred on a mixture of bran soaked in milk that's gone sour. Different flies and different maggots though both ideally soft.
__________________

In my young days Mark, gozzers could only be called gozzers if they had been fed on pigeons.

Ray Webb used to reckon that gozzers were one of the best tench baits.

 

[flightliner]

Does anybody bother with all that nowadays ?

They certainly do Skippy.I provide my neighbour with wood pidgeon thro -out the warmer monthes, he then puts them to "blow" and eventually he gets the Gossers that we both use when occasion demands it, one pidgeon will give you a quarter pint of good, extremely soft maggots that are without doubt one the best maggots to use - some of the bigger ones are like small wasp grub!. They are particularly good where very shy, hard fished bream are the target fish.
Back in the sixties on the Witham and Welland match scene it was a serious error to go without them. If by chance you did it was possible to buy an eggcupfull at the match headquarters at Kirkstead from one of the regulars from the Lincoln AA squad (It might have been Edger Purnell if memory serves me correctly but dont quote me on that one as it was a long time ago)for the hughly inflated price of 2/6p (12'5p in **** decimal money).
If I have some and you did'nt on tough bream waters back then as I,ve mentioned I catch , you struggle! Thats how good they are and why I still like them.
Its wierd the way that fashion changes, and where maggots are concerned today its all about flavouring, forty odd years ago it was somewhat differant with the emphasis on the likes of Gossers, sour brans,Liver mags, Annatto's (cant say that without mentioning Geoff kirk-the "Bollington Butcher and his two partners the Lovett brothers who took the Witham apart with the Annatto prior to the demise of roach thro columnoris).Pehaps its easier to flavour them but the Gozzer is a superb maggot.

 

[Merv Harrison]

Now that most of us have sheds or garages, it could be a good time to return to preparing our own bait. Gozzers on the hook rule OK.

I'm harbouring deep thoughts about giving it a go....

 

[flightliner]

Now that most of us have sheds or garages, it could be a good time to return to preparing our own bait. Gozzers on the hook rule OK.

I'm harbouring deep thoughts about giving it a go....
__________________

Merv, dont even hesitate. Gozzers are the ultimate maggot hookbait.Dont worry about bad smells either, if they are done properly its negligable--- smelly socks are far worse!

 

[Mark Wintle]

In my young days Mark, gozzers could only be called gozzers if they had been fed on pigeons.

Ray Webb used to reckon that gozzers were one of the best tench baits.

Don't know where you got that myth from, Ron. Benny Ashurst used pigs' hearts, Ivan used chicken pieces. Colin Graham in the Kevin Ashurst book World Class Matchfishing says that there was a myth that the gozzer fly would only breed on pigeon but it was the meat being in the dark that mattered, and said that pigs' hearts, chicken or fish all worked. I suspect availability came into it and if you could get dead pigeons from a pigeon breeder then that was cheaper than buying hearts or chicken pieces from a butcher. I used an old disused coal bunker to get them to lay eggs when I bred gozzers back in the 70s. Best description of gozzers and sour bran specials is in the Benny Ashurst book.

As FL says no smell if you match the no of blows to the amount of meat.

 

[dezza]

Don't know where you got that myth from

I don't know whether it was a myth or not, but that is what I was told, by a number of match anglers in the Sheffield and Worksop area. I certainly don't want to be dogmatic about the matter as it's not worth debating.

They will all produce maggots that catch fish.

 

[peter crabtree]

Flightliner you mention annattos. Having googled the word it turns out to be a seed. Was this used to flavour the maggots or on the hook as bait?
Are sour brans bigger or smaller than gozzers?

 

[Fred Bonney]

http://www.fishingmagic.com/forums/general-fishing/204988-most-successful-maggot-colour-2.html

 

[dangermouse]

Don't know where you got that myth from, Ron. Benny Ashurst used pigs' hearts, Ivan used chicken pieces. Colin Graham in the Kevin Ashurst book World Class Matchfishing says that there was a myth that the gozzer fly would only breed on pigeon but it was the meat being in the dark that mattered, and said that pigs' hearts, chicken or fish all worked. I suspect availability came into it and if you could get dead pigeons from a pigeon breeder then that was cheaper than buying hearts or chicken pieces from a butcher. I used an old disused coal bunker to get them to lay eggs when I bred gozzers back in the 70s. Best description of gozzers and sour bran specials is in the Benny Ashurst book.

As FL says no smell if you match the no of blows to the amount of meat.

I`ve been told my grandad used to collect maggots from the fish bins at the back of his chippy.

 

[Neil Maidment]

Pigs/Lambs hearts in the dark = gozzers. Also used any meat we could get our hands on to the same effect.

Just to complicate matters, we used to soak cereal or bread in milk, then introduce some maggot for a few days to achieve a lighter colour and in the belief it softened them up producing superior hook baits.

The effort was only really used for venues like the The Huntspill bream and as ever was primarily a confidence thing.