The holes in your maggot box lid.

Over the years I've had plenty of maggot containers and many of them seem to be made with holes that are inadequate for keeping the contents dry enough and prevent sweating which in turns clogs up the holes.
Manys the time I have put a tiny drill to the lid to make things better.
Maver boxes are the only ones I"ve found that have "proper" holes.
Why cant the makers get this one correct, not hard surely?.

You would think it was really not so difficult but in fact I have always had to take a small drill to all of the bait boxes I buy - I use both Korum and Preston exclusively b.t.w.

These days even though I have larger holes in the lids I still prefer to take my maggots in a small Sensas tray inside a large poly' bag on the floor of my car.

Then, at the venue I will put them into the bait boxes for the day, or if a match then they stay in the trays on my side tables

Someone told me the other day leave the lid "off" the mag box in the fridge, I did this and my maggots haven't gone all sweaty but I bet as soon as I have to put a lid on them they will begin to do just that, no matter how much maize I add, always had this problem and never thought to ask myself why that might be.
Have you tried "bagging them down" I tried this time before last and it resulted in maggots lasting over a week longer than normal (normal for my seller anyway) and not at all sweaty as the induced dormancy meant less respiration of the maggot and less moisture needing to be wicked from them.
I guess it stands to reason if there is little air movement or air to carry the moisture away from the maggots then that is when the process starts, anything that was originally added to keep them dusty dry gets moist and you end up with magoty maize cement clogging the holes in the lid, exasperating the issue.....got to get those drilled holes bang on eh flight?

wes79 said:

Someone told me the other day leave the lid "off" the mag box in the fridge, I did this and my maggots haven't gone all sweaty {Smile} but I bet as soon as I have to put a lid on them they will begin to do just that, no matter how much maize I add.

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I always riddle left over maggot when I get home and they go into those Sensas green trays with fresh maize meal and into the 'fridge. Every day they get riddled again and put back into the 'fridge.

Really fresh maggot should last around 950°C hours . . . . before they turn to caster.

A standard 'fridge is set at approx. 4°C so they should last (900/(24x4) or around 9 days.

Now, I'm sure that there are people around who have kept maggot for much longer, or indeed much less time, but the above is a simple rule of thumb that served us very well for years when importing upto 25 gallons of maggot every 2 weeks into Norway, over a period of about 6 years.

You can get maggot to last a little longer by placing them into a poly' bag and expelling all the air then knotting tight. In about a day the maggot will go absolutely still and elongated, in fact they look totally dead.

However, once they are tipped into large trays and given a few hours they recover very quickly. Only problem then being that they don't last too long afterwards having been once "hibernated" like that.

Excellent info, Cheers!

Those I had in bags went very quickly (if I remember right it was under 48 hours) after letting them warm up to room temp and taking them out on a session.

I'm ker nact in the fridge/freezer department. No room whatsoever which is frustrating. I'm lucky inasmuch as my neighbour will hold mine in his but I have to give notice to avoid him not being around when I need them.
Winter is not such a problem as I leave them on the garage floor behind the up n over door and they can often keep over a fortnight . At some stage inbetween a warm up will have them turning to casters within a day or three.
I dont need maggots every trip as most times I may be sat behind two rods with differant baits but a fridge would be nice.
It would still be nice however if the countainers were given a little more thought by the makers.inturned lip, inset lid, whatever it takes to avoid the clash with the other half!.

flightliner said:

whatever it takes to avoid the clash with the other half!.

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Mick,

Three wives, three divorces . . . . . . no clash anymore

Mind you, a separate bait 'fridge in the garage would have been a cheaper option I suppose . . . . LOL

If a bait box had holes big enough to stop any degree of sweating, they wouldn't prevent escape. Even in a fridge, maggots should be stored with the box lid removed completely.

The best bait boxes I've ever had are the Greys Klip-Lok. The holes are pyramid shaped. This helps to limit the effects of clogging. The newer versions of the maggot box has a perforated flip top. It may offer those that try to store maggots without fridges a better option than leaving a normal bait box lid on.

However, were I in the same situation, beyond looking to buy a bait fridge ASAP, I'd be looking for storage buckets with as wide a surface area as possible. Maggots will sweat much less if they are spread thinly rather than being a writhing mass.

sam vimes said:

Maggots will sweat much less if they are spread thinly rather than being a writhing mass.

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I totally agree . . . .

These are what I use for both riddling and storing in the 'fridge:

Rectangular Riddle Trays

Don't over-fill, it is far better to use 2 or 3 trays than over fill any one.