How to Catch Night Crawlers for Fish Bait
Worms, earthworms, night crawlers are the tried-and-true fish bait that you can’t go fishing without. If your an avid angler, you’re probably in need of worms constantly. Bellow we’ll describe how to locate and catch your own worms straight from your yard.
Harvesting Earthworms from Your Yard
There are several ways to collect worms from flooding your yard with the hose, waiting till after it rains to even using laundry detergent (this is not recommended, detergent can be harsh on grass and other plants). Bellow we list some popular techniques and tips used for gathering worms. Most you’ve probably heard of or even tried yourself but maybe there will be one or two new ones you might want to try as well.
- Water your lawn or wait till it rains After a good soaking, your lawn will be popping with worms. Look under leaves, rocks and other debris they might hide under.
- Enclose a small area of your yard off with a box. This only needs to be a few feet wide. Stick something flat in the ground on 4 sides to seal it off so the worms can’t escape. With the left half of the box soak it with water. Leave the right side dry. This is the side you will dig up to find your worms.
- Use old coffee grounds. Dump the grounds in one place in your yard and wet it down. Then at night go out and gather your worms.
- Use a 6 Volt battery With a metal rod, wire and a 6 volt battery you can give the worms a mild shock to get then to come up to the surface. With one end of the wire tie it to the top of the metal rod. With the other, tie it to the battery. Stick the bottom of the metal rod into the ground and wait for you worms to come up. This works best at night. This technique does have problems and has been known to damage the worm’s nervous system which eventually kills the worm.
Tips to Catching Worms
- Best time to hunt for worms is at night. Especially after it rains. Go out with a flashlight, be very quiet and pluck them from your yard.
- Use a red light Worms can’t see red light so you won’t scare them back into the ground when your hunting them at night.
- Pull them from the ground gently The worm will typically be half in and half out of the ground. To get them to release from the soil just give them a gentle pull and they should come out.
Once you have all the worms you want or need, it’s a good time to start a worm farm.
