Turn your own perfect casters
Like me your probably sick to death of paying through the nose for casters from the tackle shop that are of rubbish quality. Turning your own casters really isn’t that difficult and you only need the bare minimum of equipment and an hour or so of your time each day to be consistently producing your own perfect casters ready for that weekend session or match.
By following my guide below you too could be turning your left over maggots into your next sessions bait and be saving a couple of quid while your at it.
Stuff you need
- A bait bucket
- Baitboxes
- Air tight and resealable bags
- A maggot riddle
- Some maggots (obviously)
- Untreated sawdust
- water
Stage 1: Clean and prepare the maggots
Place the riddle on top of the bucket and pour the maggots on to the riddle, allow these to pass through the riddle at their own pace leaving all the crud such as old maize or sawdust and dead maggots, throw this rubbish away. I do this at least twice to make sure I have got rid of all the rubbish. Then keep adding handfuls of the untreated sawdust to the bucket of maggots until they have a good covering. You don’t want to bury them completely but there needs to be enough so that when the maggots wriggle the sawdust is cleaning them off. I then dampen the sawdust with the water (approx 1/8 pint of water to every pint of maggots)
Stage 2: Riddle the maggots frequently
Throughout the day I will riddle the maggots off by pouring them on to the riddle and giving it a quick shake to force the sawdust to go through in to the bucket, once the maggots have fallen through into the bucket I inspect the riddle for any signs of casters or maggots just about to turn and throw away any dead maggots or skins that have been left on the riddle.
Stage 3: Removing the casters
Once the maggots have started to turn you will be able to pick out any casters easily from the riddle. The more often you riddle the maggots the better as you will be able to spot when the maggots are turning and be able to catch the caster while it still light brown meaning it will sink when offered as feed. Place the casters in resealable freezer bags and gently squeeze out the air before sealing. Open the bags at least once a day to give the casters a breather. If you can get away with it, put the bags of casters in the fridge as they will last longer, if you have a separate bait fridge, all the better.
By following the guidelines above I have successfully turned hundreds of pints of quality casters, every single time.
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