Quantity of Maggots for River Session

[maceo]

I'm a little confused.

Everything I read suggests not to overfeed in winter. "Just use half a dozen maggots a time as loose feed every couple of casts when trotting" is typical of what you read in lots of books and articles.

Then you come to totally contradictory articles in the magazines and angling newspapers, such as the one in Angler's Mail today, which says to take 6 pints or a gallon of maggots on a session.

How could you possibly use that quantity feeding half a dozen at a time? Your session would have to last a fortnight!

I've read quite a few articles specifying similar huge quantities of maggots in the winter. Something doesn't add up. Who has got it right?

Personally I take a pint in the winter for an all day session and feed in small amounts. I still usually end up feeding a lot more in the last hour just to use 'em all up!

 

[sam vimes]

It's been many years since I've used anything more than around four pints of maggots at any time of the year. I invariably use something cheaper as a feed bait and fish maggot over the top. On a river it would tend to be hemp, particles or pellet and occasionally groundbait. On a stillwater it's likely to be groundbait, particles or pellet. I don't think I'd ever take more than two pints of maggots for a winter session. I'd expect to take at least half a pint home with me unless I'd had a storming session.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

I don't think that there are really any hard and fast rules, however, my rule of thumb is like this:

The amount of feed you use will depend more on where you are fishing, what are the dominant or target species and how long the session is gonig to be.

For a Chub or shoaled Roach dominated sort of venue then I'd take 4 pints for a typical day, which for me would begin around 11AM and end a little after dark.

I'd still only feed 6 to 8 maggots at a time at the beginning and then build the rate of feed to the number of bites and landed fish that are experienced.

The old addge of "feed to you bites" is still a good one to follow on winter rivers.

 

[itsfishingnotcatching]

Took a pint to the river on Sunday, baited heavily over four hours (by my standards) and still brought some home.

 

[dezza]

Normally I take 1 gallon of maggots for a Trent river session. When I had my own company I would often take 2 gallons, and use the lot.

 

[Jeff Woodhouse]

I well remember in the 70s that when we went to places like the Trent we'd take as many casters as we could. It was normal for some of the better match lads to buy 2 gallons of whites and turn as many as possible, many to to same shade of pale brown, so they'd take maybe a gallon or just over. The rest would go as normal maggot and be thrown in at the end of the match. I was more conservative using around half a gallon to turn as many as I could, but then I rarely figured in the weighings.

You can do it on much less. I have taken two pints and fished the river three times during the week, once with a young lad who used some, and still had good catches and some to throw in at the end, but I'm a tightar$e now so what do you expect?

 

[flightliner]

It all depends on the swim, the species ,the method, rivers, lakes, barbel -roach will all demand a differant approach and quantity.
Float fishing for roach on moving water =a pint up to say, a half gallon or more.
Fl;oat fishing for Barbel, as little as a half pint to no limit, again depending on swim and conditions.
Be prepared to step up or down and feed to your bites.