# goldenrod grubs / acorn grubs, final thoughts



## hardwaterfan (Apr 6, 2004)

just in case anyone was curious about my experimenting this season with these collected baits.

unfortunately as you all know we didnt get much ice this season but as far as being enticing to fish i thought these grubs worked equally well as waxworms the few times i got to try them.

goldenrod grubs: yesterday i realeased all the galls i collected into a nearby stand of nearly pure goldenrod. most galls were kept back in the shed which is unheated. i was suprised to see a lot of grubs crawled out of their galls in the white larval state. i thought they pupated into a fly in the gall when the weather warmed. some were still in the gall.

i had some grubs in a bait cup. in the last few weeks they started to turn brown. they were in the garage. there were also some in a coffee can in the garage. most of them crawled out and were dead at the bottom of the can.

so i guess its best to keep them outside if possible.

their drawback is they are just so darn tiny. still useable though.

acorn grubs: yesterday i got rid of all my acorns. i still found about a dozen or so at the bottom of the bucket. so that leads me to beleive that they will most all come out within a month or so at the time i collected them.

i kept them all in the garage. the ones in the bait cup (bedded in dirt) mostly lived. a few dried up and turned brown. the ones bedded in dirt in a bucket are all still alive as far as i can see. you have to make sure the dirt isnt too dry or too wet. too wet is worse than too dry. covering them with a bunch of acorns like i did in the pic seems to help keep the right humidity in the dirt. in fact yesterday i found a lot of the acorns had sprouted into the dirt at the bottom of the bucket.

mortality of acorn grubs was very low as far as i can tell. much, much less than waxworms. i only see a couple dead ones out of maybe a few hundred grubs but i cant be certain. they hide very well in the dirt. they make a little chamber out of dirt. looks just like a dirt ball, until you break it open and a grub falls out.

i still have a ton of acorn grubs and they look as healthy as they did months ago. most of the acorn grubs are the same size as maggots. some are a bit bigger and some are smaller. some are much smaller, practically unuseable. i like them because their skin is fairly tough and rubbery. they arent very fragile. but you can pop them on a hook and some juice will come out. they hold their shape well.

so i think next year i will certainly collect acorn grubs again, and will collect a few goldenrod grubs but not nearly as many as i did this past year.

i collected about 3 gallons of goldenrod galls and about 8 gallons of acorns this past year.

i think they are both worthwhile to try to collect if you are interested in this sort of thing.

see ya next season.


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## ski (May 13, 2004)

Are the goldenrod grubs in the bulb? I have heard they are great for trout streams in Pennsylvania. I have tried to cut them open, but usually destroy the grub before I get them open. Is there a seacret to opening them up? How long will they stay fresh after you get them.
ski


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## TIGGER (Jan 17, 2006)

Hardwater, I know of these golden rod worms you speak of. It was around 1975 I reading a field and stream magazine. They would always had a section on usefull tips. I read about them and have used them every since. I don't collect them as you do. If i'm fishing a farm pond with adjacent field i will go grab a couple in the bulb. After they harden you have to be carefull opening them with a knife. Potential accident. Over the years i've told people this tip. They think i'm crazy. 

The acorn worms i have not tried. I do notice acorns in the spring that have the holes out the side of them when they leave.

Another small tip. In the fall i will start to keep egg shells to drop in my icefishing holes. I crumble them up and drop them in. They flutter so nice on there way down. A good fish attractor.

Till next year!


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## hardwaterfan (Apr 6, 2004)

> Are the goldenrod grubs in the bulb? I have heard they are great for trout streams in Pennsylvania. I have tried to cut them open, but usually destroy the grub before I get them open. Is there a seacret to opening them up? How long will they stay fresh after you get them.


Yes, the goldenrod grubs are in the bulb. usually theres one bulb on a stalk and if you find one theres probably more in the immediate area.

The way I open them up is use scissors to pry the bulb open. take scissors and cut partway through the bulb at an angle, then use that leverage to pry/rip the bulb open. then you can see the grub usually (if theres one in there) and may have to make another cut or two so you can get the grub out. Just avoid cutting through the center of the gall because thats where the grub sits. 

Ive found they will stay fresh for several months but you have to keep them cold. They naturally lay dormant in the winter inside the bulb, so keep them outside if possible, like in an outside shed.

After you get the grub out and put it in a container they will last about 2 months in an unheated garage and I didnt use any bedding. Except for some scraps of a bulb in case they got hungry but i dont think they ate any gall.



> The acorn worms i have not tried. I do notice acorns in the spring that have the holes out the side of them when they leave.


Try collecting some next fall. Even acorns with holes may have grubs, from what i understand and have seen, there are two beetles that make these grubs and the one kind uses the leftover hole from the first kind.

Ill have to do some more experimenting next year.


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## snake69 (Sep 26, 2005)

I usually put them in the garden and/or composter.....never tried the ice hole. Interesting thought!


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## steelmagoo (Apr 13, 2004)

About the egg shells, I've read that another reason for doing this is to silhouette fish against the white flakes on the bottom. Kinda like a poor mans aqua view.


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## billybob7059 (Mar 27, 2005)

well even though you never got to really use them. I think next year it would be a neat thing to try. atleast it will be cheaper than buying bait all the time. And hopfully next season we will get some ice!


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## TIGGER (Jan 17, 2006)

Steel, interesting thought on the silhouette. It makes sense to me. I've also heard of people using them on lake erie while perch fishing as an attractant in open water.


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## steelmagoo (Apr 13, 2004)

Tigger,
I think I used the egg shells once or twice, but couldn't tell if it improved the bite or not.

Hardwater,
Thanks for the research and the update on the bugs. I collected some goldenrod grubs while hunting, largely because of your posts. Unfortunately, I haven't used any yet because of poor fishing opportunities. As a matter of fact, I think there are a couple dozen rolling around in the back of my Exploder right now. Hope they don't like carpet! I'll give it another try next season.


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## peple of the perch (Sep 13, 2004)

ive used egg shells and did good.


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## hardwaterfan (Apr 6, 2004)

my pleasure, i knew some of you guys would get a kick out of it. 

with the price of gas and everything, its nice to be able to at least collect some of your own bait for free. plus its just interesting.

at least i have been using acorn grubs for open water fishing lately (trout). they are indestructable, i think they can take being frozen solid for a while, not sure.


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## hardwaterfan (Apr 6, 2004)

i saw a couple familiar looking bugs in the garage just now....sure enough all my leftover acorn grubs are hatching into acorn weevils and trying to climb the nearest oak looking for acorns..theyre climbing the walls....tomorrow ill go dump them all under an oak back in the woods. 

this isnt a pic i took but this is what they look like:


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## TIGGER (Jan 17, 2006)

The golden rod is growing great this year.


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## joe01 (Apr 16, 2004)

looks like a tick


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## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

So how many grubs do you normally find in one goldenrod bulb? I would hope there are several or I don't think I could make a goldenrod hunt worth my time.

I may have to give this a try this year. My boys would really find that interesting as well.


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## hardwaterfan (Apr 6, 2004)

tigger, i agree. ive seen some galls already.

joe, youre right, they are bigger than a tick though. probably about the size of a dime. that long needle like nose is a tool to dig into an acorn. i hate ticks.

bkr, there is one goldenrod grub in a gall (at the most). many times there is nothing inside. there are at least a few predators that they have....one is some kind of wasp. you can tell if you look close at the gall you can see pinholes where the wasp used its appendage to bore to the grub and lay eggs on it (i think) then you might see a few wasp larvae in there. theyre REALLY tiny. but im not sure, just some things ive seen.
its a fun thing to do but a lot of work for a tiny tiny grub. acorn grubs are a bit more "productive"....more grubs per "house" (acorn) and its just easier to get to them. they are about as big as maggots but the size varies. some of them are really small too. 

i think kids would get a real kick out of it.


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## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

Yeah that may be an activity to try with the kids but not for fishing supply.

I have a funny story from a few years back. My boys found a bulb on a weed early one spring and they did not know what was in it so they brought it inside to show it off. My wife decided to leave it lay on our bar for a few days. One day she walked over to it and could not figure out what all these little green bugs were. It turned out she had brought in a preying mantis cocoon/bulb and there were dozens and dozens of these things crawling around. Moral of the story is to follow Hardwaterfan's suggestion to leave them in the garage.


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## hardwaterfan (Apr 6, 2004)

wow...thats pretty cool though.

as a side note, i think i collected two different kinds of acorn grubs. some were brown and some were gray. was kind of cool to watch them crawl out of the dirt and start climbing the oak tree. they have to be real good climbers to crawl up a smooth plastic bucket. a few of them made some short flights....i didnt know they could fly. some of them just climbed onto the tree and sat around.


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## peple of the perch (Sep 13, 2004)

what does golden rod look like. also the prymantis thing my bother brought home what he believed was an emptie cocoon it was from a school project he put it on the table next day there were tons everywhere.


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## hardwaterfan (Apr 6, 2004)

click this link for many pictures of goldenrod:

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=Solidago+canadensis&btnG=Search


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## peple of the perch (Sep 13, 2004)

i never new they looked like that. i always thought that they were those long grass like things


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