Bloodworm is one of the best fishing baits at any time of the year, and in winter it becomes the main one for fishing with jigs. Such a bait ensures a bite for a wide variety of fish, among which the main winter catch can be identified - perch, roach, bream, etc. But an inexperienced fisherman may have an annoying problem with this bait - it quickly becomes unusable if stored improperly. The site rybkolov.ru will help you cope with this problem and tell you how to extend the storage of bloodworms and preserve them for subsequent fishing trips.
First of all, it is important to know that in order for the bloodworm to remain alive as long as possible, it needs moisture, coolness and the absence of dead fellow larvae nearby. Based on this, we can conclude that if we give our larvae moisture and separate them from the dead, they will last longer. We'll talk about how to implement this below.
How to separate live bloodworms
First, it is necessary to select only live bloodworms so that a chain reaction does not occur and they do not begin to die en masse. You can separate the living from the dead by knowing one feature in its behavior - a living bloodworm always tries to seep into a hole and get out of some vessel or confined space. How to organize this?
We will need a large container of water - it can be a basin or bucket; mesh - a regular metal mesh or sieve with 2-3 mm cells. We place the bloodworms on top of this mesh and lightly immerse it in a container of water so that the larvae are completely submerged under water. After 15-20 minutes, all the live bloodworms will seep through the sieve and end up at the bottom of a large container, and the dead ones will remain in the sieve and we just have to throw it away.
If you don’t have a suitable mesh and you can’t get it, you can make something like a sieve with your own hands. To do this, just take some kind of plastic lid, preferably with a larger diameter, and use a hot wire or a nail to make holes in it with a diameter of 2-3 mm. Immerse it in water, pour the bloodworms on top and wait until all the living bloodworms fall through the holes.
A homemade sieve often has one drawback - the holes may be larger or smaller in diameter than necessary. Then the dead bloodworm will crawl into the large holes along with the living bloodworm, but even the living one will not be able to crawl into the small ones. But in any case, a homemade sieve will help you sift out dead bloodworms more or less efficiently.
Important! Chlorinated tap water is not suitable for this procedure over bloodworms. In order for bloodworms to live as long as possible, it is necessary to use water from a reservoir or melt water. Melt water can be obtained by melting snow or ice. As a last resort, you can stand the tap water or freeze it before use.
Bloodworm
photo can be enlarged
Bloodworms are the oldest and most common live food for adult medium-sized aquarium fish. These are mosquito larvae, although not the ones that bite us outdoors in the summer. It comes in different sizes, which allows you to choose it to suit the size of your aquarium fish. He eats them with pleasure, no side effects have been noticed. It freezes easily and can be stored in the freezer without problems. With frozen larvae it is impossible to introduce infection into the aquarium. You can buy bloodworms at almost any pet store or pet market. It is also used for sport and amateur fishing, especially in winter. Large as bait, small as groundbait.
Live bloodworms are the common name for mosquito larvae. Depending on the species and development conditions, the length of the larva ranges from 10 to 25 millimeters, and the color is usually bright red. Lives at the bottom, in silty soil, of small ponds, lakes and river bays, with little or no current. It feeds on various organic residues that can be found in the sludge or on its surface.
In the summer, adult mosquitoes lay tiny eggs in the water, which hatch into small gray larvae. These larvae molt periodically. After their first moult, they acquire a characteristic red color. The secretions of the salivary glands allow the larvae to create a cocoon by gluing together the surrounding small debris. The free front part protruding from the cocoon is used to search for food. The grown larvae pupate, and the mature pupae float to the surface of the water and mosquitoes emerge from them.
How to store bloodworms
To store bloodworms you will need some kind of jar or box. Ideally, use a special bloodworm, which can be purchased at any fishing store. This moth tray is made of polystyrene foam, and this material is known to have excellent thermal insulation. The bloodworm is very convenient because during winter fishing it is not at all cold to hold it with your hands and it will never become iced up. The blood bottle is closed with a lid made of the same foam, which is also very convenient.
In addition to the bloodworm, you can use any jar or box, preferably made of plastic, foam or wood. A damp cloth is placed inside the jar with extra space so that after you place the bloodworm on top of it, you can cover it with the same cloth on top, as if wrapping the bait inside. The cloth should be only slightly damp, so be sure to wring it out thoroughly before use.
After you have washed the bloodworms, when all the living larvae have fallen through the holes of the sieve, you need to let them dry a little by placing them on a newspaper or some piece of paper so that excess moisture is removed from the larvae. When excess water has drained from the bloodworm, you can place it on a cloth in a box.
The box with bloodworms is stored in the refrigerator on the lowest shelf, preferably in the door compartment, so that the larvae do not freeze and at the same time are in comfortable cool conditions.
To extend the shelf life of bloodworms, it is necessary to repeat the washing procedure every day or at least every few days, separating the dead larvae. This way you can keep the bloodworm alive for more than 2 weeks. Below we will look at some more interesting ways to store this bait.
Storing bloodworms in potatoes
Many experienced fishermen store bloodworms in potatoes and claim that the starch contained in this vegetable prolongs the life of the larvae. There are several ways to use potatoes to store our bait.
- Take a medium-sized or larger potato, cut off the cap and cut out the inside with a knife, forming a recess - an excellent storage for our bait. Potatoes are stored in the refrigerator door on the bottom shelf. You can also mix bloodworms with tea leaves and only then place them in potatoes, sometimes this helps to extend the life of the bait a little more.
- In the second option, the potatoes are grated on a fine grater and placed on a cloth. Bloodworms are laid out on the potatoes, on top of which a layer of grated potatoes is again placed. The cloth is rolled up and placed in any container or bottle for storage in the refrigerator.
Although potatoes themselves help prolong the life of the larvae, they still have to be carefully monitored and regularly separated from the dead. This is the only way the bloodworm will be stored for a really long time.
Storage in newspaper
Another good and very affordable way is storing it in newspaper. To do this, you will need a sheet of newspaper, which it is advisable to roll in several layers. The newspaper must be wetted, but so that it does not become sour. Now we wrap our bloodworm in it. We wrap our package in dry newspaper on top and store the larvae in this form in the refrigerator.
Such storage also requires regular sifting of dead larvae. Storing in newspaper allows you to preserve the bloodworms until your next fishing trip, and sometimes the larvae can remain fresh and active for more than a week. The main thing is to touch them less with your hands so as not to further injure the larvae and cause heat stress.
Freezing bloodworms
Frozen bloodworms keep very well. Place the larvae in a matchbox or ice cube tray and place in the freezer. This storage method will allow you to preserve the bait for more than 2 months. It is very convenient to store bloodworms this way, putting 3 or more servings of bloodworms in the freezer and taking one of them for each fishing trip.
Frozen bloodworms, after defrosting, will retain all their nutritional and taste properties, but they will no longer be alive. This is a rather crude storage method, but it is effective and excellent for keeping bait in a condition suitable for fishing for as long as possible.
Storing bloodworms all winter
To keep bloodworms alive throughout the winter, you will need a large container of water; a bucket is best. If possible, collect water from a pond, you can even scoop up a little silt. If this is not possible, use melted snow or ice. As a last resort, you can use settled tap water, but such water can negatively affect the shelf life of the bait.
You need to store a bucket of bloodworms in a cool place; a balcony is perfect for this. Freezing the water in the bucket is unacceptable, otherwise the bloodworm will die. If it’s cool on your balcony, but the temperature is above zero, you have an excellent opportunity to store bloodworms all winter without worrying about bait for the whole season.
Storage and resuscitation of bloodworms
The article tells you how to get and preserve bloodworms at home, so that you always have fresh bait when fishing.
If it weren’t for the “square” eyes of friends who saw this bait in a state of vigorous revival a week after a deep coma, I would never have thought that this topic was so relevant. Once, an entire company suffered because the task of providing cool bait was mistakenly entrusted to an ardent moth-eater with all the ensuing consequences. After all, a “dead” bloodworm can ruin all the long-awaited fishing, especially if the main bet was made on it.
Storing bloodworms while fishing
The question of how to store bloodworms while fishing requires special attention. First of all, you must completely eliminate the possibility of your bait freezing. Always store bloodworms in the inside pocket of your jacket. But you will have to take care of the safety of the larvae while fishing even before going out on the ice.
In order for the bloodworm to remain in good condition until the end of fishing, it must be dried by laying the bait in a thin layer on newspaper. Let the larvae dry for about 10 minutes and only then put them in a bloodworm container or other container that you will use to store bloodworms. If the larvae are too wet, they will quickly freeze outside and become unsuitable for fishing.
These are the tips for storing bloodworms provided to you by rybkolov.ru. We will be very glad if you liked the article and brought at least some benefit. No tail, no scales. Come visit us again, and also read about ways to attach bloodworms to a hook.
How to save and revive bloodworms?
It is important not to overfreeze, and a live bloodworm will survive for several hours even in the heat. Maximum – clinical death. Having reached home, either from the store or from fishing with leftover bait, I begin resuscitation, and always, regardless of the diagnosis, as a preventive measure. The main medicine is clean cold water to drink and catch your breath. As the water warms up (over the course of an hour), the bloodworms become more vigorous - it’s time to put it in a colander. Larvae that overcome a simple obstacle in five minutes receive credit. The rest go into the substandard category and will serve as bait or, in extreme cases, as a reserve.
If there is still more than a day before fishing, then the larvae are sent to jars with fresh water. Interestingly, the survival rate of bloodworms hovering near the surface is ten times less than those that drowned, although I change the water daily. Not every moth can throw off a bubble, so every time I change the water I carry out a funny procedure - I poke my finger into the water. It may look stupid from the outside, but it is very effective.
About 10-15 hours before fishing, I strain the bloodworms sorted through a colander in a strainer, lay them out in a thin layer (thick as a finger) on a newspaper and wrap it in an envelope, flat, so that the paper touches the bait on all sides. Before leaving, I open the envelope - it contains a shapeless cake of motionless bloodworms. But as soon as you gently ruffle it, it immediately turns into a living, moving lump. I transfer the bloodworms to a dry (!) cloth, and then to a foam box.
I fill the blood bottle already while fishing and add more as I use it up. I dare to assure that with such simple manipulations it is possible to bring almost any bloodworm to its senses, of course, at least a little bit alive.
How to catch and wash bloodworms
Bloodworms live on the muddy bottom of reservoirs, lakes or at the bottom of slow-flowing rivers. After the female mosquito lays eggs, the larvae hatch and then burrow into the mud. The dirtier and swampier the pond, the more bloodworms there are in it, since the larvae feed on organic matter from the sludge. This is also associated with a high risk of infection of aquarium fish from live bloodworms, since many sellers at the poultry market obtain bloodworms from the dirtiest reservoirs with nearby sewers, where bloodworms live in abundance.
The easiest way to catch bloodworms is with a bucket and rope. A rope is tied to the handle of the bucket, the bucket is thrown into the pond, lowered to the bottom and then pulled along the bottom, scraping off the top layer of silt. Bloodworms usually live in this upper layer of silt. After you have caught the sludge from the bottom with a bucket, you need to wash bloodworms out of it. To do this, take a sieve with small cells and thoroughly wash the sludge, leaving the caught bloodworms in the sieve. In this form, bloodworms are not suitable for feeding aquarium fish, as they contain many parasites and pathogens; they can only be used for fishing.
Frozen bloodworms purchased at the market or in a pet store can be given to aquarium fish immediately, but if you bought live bloodworms and plan to feed them to the fish in the same form, then additional processing is desirable. First of all, live bloodworms must be fresh and bright in color. When you wet the bloodworm with water or touch it with your fingers, it should begin to actively move. If bloodworms have a rotten smell, then they are not suitable for feeding fish.
Washing bloodworms from sludge
Bloodworms can be cleaned as follows. You need a fine sieve with a flat bottom, through which bloodworms can get through; we lower it into a container of water so that only the bottom of the sieve is wetted with water. All live and active bloodworms will slide into a container of water, and dead or weak ones will remain in the sieve; we will throw them away. It is also convenient to use a bloodworm for this purpose, which you can buy at a pet store. Live and fresh bloodworms are removed from the water with a net or filtered through a cloth. Such washed and fresh bloodworms can be safely frozen.
If you plan to feed your fish with live bloodworms purchased from a bird or caught yourself, then it must be periodically washed in water for a couple of days and sifted from dead larvae in the manner described above. During this time, their intestines should have time to free themselves from silt and harmful substances. To disinfect, you can also wash the bloodworms in a 5% salt solution for 10 minutes.
We strongly recommend that you feed your fish only frozen bloodworms, which can be conveniently stored in the freezer of the refrigerator for quite a long time. When feeding frozen bloodworms, the risk of fish becoming infected with infections is noticeably reduced, while frozen bloodworms are not much inferior to live bloodworms in their nutritional qualities.
Varieties of bloodworms
Depending on their size and habitat, there are several types of bloodworms:
| Large (attached) | It is mined on an industrial scale in freshwater swamps and lakes containing large amounts of organic waste. |
| Small Ural | Also the main habitat in fresh water bodies. |
| River small | Concentrates in fresh water near large industrial discharges, livestock complexes, etc. |
| Southern Estuary | More often it accumulates at the bottom of salty estuaries in the south of Ukraine and Russia with large organic waste. |
Estuary bloodworms often have a too light, sometimes carrot-colored tint and a large variation in size (from 1 to 7 mm), and are characterized by the presence of a thick chitinous cover, which makes the larva less nutritious.
It is small bloodworms that are considered food and are more often used as live food by aquarists. And the large one is better used for bait by fishermen, although it is used to feed large inhabitants of tanks.
