While stirring my baits/lures for the upcoming seasons use, I noticed one of my pickle jar lids had about half a dozen very small maggots. Between the jar lid and the contents of the jar I have two layers of cheese cloth. Before stirring I carefully inspected the top layer of my concoction to ensure there was nothing visible on top, and there wasn’t. Did I dodge a bullet here??? That was the only jar I found evidence of anything like that on, and I washed that lid in hot soapy water after brushing the maggots off into the garbage… new cheese cloth was applied to all baits and lures and nothing smells out of the ordinary. I plan on keeping a close eye on that one jar, but has anyone experienced anything like that, maggots between the cheese cloth and lid? If so, how did it turn out? Really trying to NOT have to throw this thing in the freezer, but also don’t wanna lose it to maggots

Just stirred my tainted beaver that hasn’t had anything added except SB and found maggots on top, very small and it doesn’t reek, so I threw them in the freezer…. A few days good on a freeze to kill off any undesirables?

Did bait myself for the first time this year and ran into the same issues. I threw mine all in the freezer(several gallons) for several days after mixing in the sodium benzoate and no issues after that. I scooped out and threw away the little bit on top that had the majority of the maggots then threw in the freezer. Oddly, when I popped the top the bait would smell horrid, then when I scooped off the top layer that had the maggots, there was a noticeably different smell, more like what I was expecting