Am i going mad?

[Paul Bullinger]

On the 14th March I had a few hours river fishing before Close Season. Nothing spectacular, just a pint of maggots and trotting a local stream for silvers and chublets.
After the session I had some maggots left and as I have done many times before I took them home to freeze (dead maggots can be a good bait)
I put them in a plastic bag, sucked out all the air, sealed the bag tight, meaning to put them in the freezer. I forgot.
Today I was tidying up in the garage and came across the bag of maggots. Thinking they would be a gooey mess I decided to chuck them outside for the birds.
Now this is the spooky bit. As I undid the airtight bag, they started to wriggle...very much alive! From the 14th March! In an airtight bag!
So, am I going mad?!

 

[Richard Turner]

On the 14th March I had a few hours river fishing before Close Season. Nothing spectacular, just a pint of maggots and trotting a local stream for silvers and chublets.
After the session I had some maggots left and as I have done many times before I took them home to freeze (dead maggots can be a good bait)
I put them in a plastic bag, sucked out all the air, sealed the bag tight, meaning to put them in the freezer. I forgot.
Today I was tidying up in the garage and came across the bag of maggots. Thinking they would be a gooey mess I decided to chuck them outside for the birds.
Now this is the spooky bit. As I undid the airtight bag, they started to wriggle...very much alive! From the 14th March! In an airtight bag!
So, am I going mad?!

As a well known lager advert would say 'probably!!

 

[Stephen Crowhurst]

No, they’re weird things. Very resilient.

 

[Mike Thompson]

Paul, I often store maggots in an airtight bag. I make sure they are dry and riddle off any dust then into a bag and store in my bait fridge. If they have been there for a week or two they look totally dead, but put in a bait box with the lid off and they will recover. The longer they have been in the fridge, the longer it takes then to wake up. But I have successfully stored them this way for three weeks, though they took over twenty four hours to come round.

 

[Paul Bullinger]

As my old dad used to say "you're never too old to learn". Having fished for most of my 70 years, I never realised maggots could live without air for a month! As Stephen says "very resilient "! They certainly are.

 

[Huanzhou Zhu]

What’s the best temperature to store maggots in the fridge? Thanks

 

[Terry Simner]

What’s the best temperature to store maggots in the fridge? Thanks

As close as possible to freezing, without actually freezing. Maggots are basically just bags of liquid, and if you freeze that liquid solid then the maggot dies. But 3-4'c would get their metabolic rate down close to zero, especially if they're deprived of oxygen. If you get them out of the fridge say once a week, give them a bit of air for 15mins, then put them back in again with very limited air, you should be able to keep them for months. If you see any brown/black (dead) ones amongst them, get rid of those.

 

[David Craine]

Funny that this should come up, Yesterday I checked on some maggots I had given the above treatment to over 4 weeks ago, I took them out for a breath of air after being in the bottom of the fridge fearing the worst , after an hours respite they were fine and wriggling fit to bust , so back they went.

David

 

[Jean-Pierre Bantin]

On the 14th March I had a few hours river fishing before Close Season. Nothing spectacular, just a pint of maggots and trotting a local stream for silvers and chublets.
After the session I had some maggots left and as I have done many times before I took them home to freeze (dead maggots can be a good bait)
I put them in a plastic bag, sucked out all the air, sealed the bag tight, meaning to put them in the freezer. I forgot.
Today I was tidying up in the garage and came across the bag of maggots. Thinking they would be a gooey mess I decided to chuck them outside for the birds.
Now this is the spooky bit. As I undid the airtight bag, they started to wriggle...very much alive! From the 14th March! In an airtight bag!
So, am I going mad?!

I sometimes riddle off the maize flour, put them in a bag vacuumed shut, place in the freezer for about for about 30 mins (until they have become motionless but not frozen) and place in my fridge. The cooler the fridge the better, about 1°C is perfect. For me they tend to live for at the very least three weeks but i've had some last about 6+ weeks, probably dependent on how fresh they were at the time of purchase.

I am only guessing at how this all works but I'm sure someone will know for sure:

• I assume the flour if fresh/dry can either absorb moisture that can dry the maggots too much as they are no longer mobile and producing sweat or that the maize flour is already moist and in turns makes the maggots go off. Also the moisture is largely amonia which can kill maggots in too high a concentration.
• Freezing the maggots knocks them out so that they are no longer moving and therefore no longer generating heat. This means they won't get a chance to counteract the fridges low temperate by wriggling about.
• Cold temperatures slow their metabolic rate, keeping them alive longer.
• Turning the bag into a near vacume removes the oxygen they need to be active but as they are now in a dormant state, none is required to keep them alive for sometime.

Their is a mix of assumption and presumption in the above. I would love to hear anyone else's views.

Also flatening the bag containing the maggots prior to vacuuming seems to help. Likely due to them forming an insulation layer when densely packed. This is the reason that maggots in a larger container last longer than in a smaller container, where insulation effects raise the temperature and therefore speeding up the life cycle.