Fly Larvae / Spikes/ Fish Bait Update

Wanted to let you readers in on an update, who have shown interest in the article... 

Blue Bottle Fly Larvae / Spikes/ BSFL - Fish Bait - Human Food?

I conducted an experiment and the results positive, being that it is possible to raise fly larvae for fish bait on something that doesn't smell so bad.  I almost even cooked and tried them for food but the mess of beetles and grasshoppers won that day haha!  They actually didn't smell bad at all and probably would have tasted like they did smell, just like coffee.  Also, eating them would have been contrary to previous posts of mine which say I do not want to eat insects raised on dog or cat food but this method would probably work with any souring grains in place of the dog food, which is mostly grains anyway but there are other things in there I don't like the idea of.  Besides that I do not nor have I ever liked coffee.

All I did was mix old coffee grinds about 50/50 with dog food, moistened it, kept it moist and let it set out uncovered.  The flies did their thing and within a week I had thousands of fly larvae going at it.  The mixture never did stink as I would define it but smelled like coffee the whole time.  So did the larvae smell of coffee and tossing them in the lake was no different than any larvae reared on fish guts.  The fish went nuts and gobbled down every one in short order.

Harvesting was fairly simple and came quickly as fly larvae do not take long at all to develop.  A sample cup of the material containing larvae was dumped onto a piece of window screen and sprayed with a water hose.  All the food residue went through the screen and all the larvae were there, clean and ready to go into a cup of dry sawdust.  Though I picked them off the screen by hand, a daunting task, it would be easy with hindsight to tilt the screen and pour them into a trough of sorts, perhaps a lengthwise cut piece of PVC pipe with sawdust to then pour into a container or fold the screen, making an easy to pour shape but my screen was on a rigid frame.

Have at it spikers!  Grow all the good smelling fly larvae you want and good fishing.  You hardcore Entomophagists might find these a tasty addition to your snacking but I'm sticking with what I know is good for now haha!