Fishing with maggots - the favourite fishing bait

The maggot is the larvae of the bluebottle.

The maggot is the most used coarse fishing bait in Britain by far - mainly because just about every species of coarse fish has been caught on it - yes even Pike !

I wouldn't recommend you used it as a pike bait as these catches are quite rare, but for just about every other species they regularly catch fish. They should be lively and quite soft when you buy them and they keep better (and longer) if kept somewhere cold - even the fridge.

Maggots are an excellent hook bait and good as loose feed. They now come in a variety of colours as they can be dyed. Sometimes I have caught fish on nothing but a red maggot and can't even buy a bite on a white or yellow maggot, so experimentation is always worthwhile.

When maggots turn into crysalis they are known as casters (see other pages)