Nightcrawlers

[Billfish715]

If you are a freshwater bait fisherman, you know how much the trout and other fish love to eat worms. Now is the time to fill your worm farms with fat, juicy nightcrawlers without having to dig them or pick them out of the ground at night. They are readily available under the piles of leaves in the streets. After yesterday's rain, they are everywhere. Just move some leaves out of the way and pick them up and put them in a box with layers of compost and wet newspapers and keep it in a dark cool place. You'll always have a supply of bait for one of those warm winter days when none of the bait shops have any. Feed them some coffee grounds and vegetative scraps every so often. Get some Buss Bedding for an even better soil base.

[Chrisper4694]

Ever put them on tip ups, I wonder if that would work on certain species

[MudCat08]

it would work for perch and sunfish for sure. Though i have never seen a wild nitecrawler in north NJ. I know they should be around... Most of my worms in the back yard compost have disappeared for the winter since last month. No where to get worms:( Maybe they dig deep to stay warmer or some of them just die with frost and the new generation pops up in the spring.

[Chrisper4694]

Not sure if night crawlers or just big worms but like billfish said, they are everywhere after the unseasonably warm rain

[Wilson]

Try Walmart for crawlers. The worms in the street after a rain are not night crawlers:rolleyes:

[Delawareriver]

Ever put them on tip ups, I wonder if that would work on certain species

I tip my jigs with them once in awhile while ice fishing, have caught plenty of panfish including my largest perch with them

[Billfish715]

Try Walmart for crawlers. The worms in the street after a rain are not night crawlers:rolleyes:

Come on, Wilson. Gimme a break.When we were kids, there was no such thing as "buying bait". We watered the lawn, waited until dark, got out our flashlights and started picking nightcrawlers. In fact, I know someone who used to sell worms out of his car on the side of the road during trout season. He picked his nightcrawlers at local football fields and golf courses, packed them and had quite a business selling them to fishermen and local tackle stores. Yes, I do know what a nightcrawler is.

By the way, there are nightcrawlers under those leaf piles too but,you do have to sort through the "earthworms" which are the most prominent. The rain we had flushed them out to the curb and they find the warmth and dampness under the leaves.

[Wilson]

Come on, Wilson. Gimme a break.When we were kids, there was no such thing as "buying bait". We watered the lawn, waited until dark, got out our flashlights and started picking nightcrawlers. In fact, I know someone who used to sell worms out of his car on the side of the road during trout season. He picked his nightcrawlers at local football fields and golf courses, packed them and had quite a business selling them to fishermen and local tackle stores. Yes, I do know what a nightcrawler is.

By the way, there are nightcrawlers under those leaf piles too but,you do have to sort through the "earthworms" which are the most prominent. The rain we had flushed them out to the curb and they find the warmth and dampness under the leaves.
When I was a kid gas was 30 cents a gallon and the fishing license was $4.15.
Crawlers were 25 cents a dozen. Since I had a paper route I made $12.00 a week and bought them!! The bait scene has changed a bit from then.
While you can still pick up crawlers at night after a rain storm I just buy them now.
I was directing my reply to mudcat08...forgot to quote him;)

[Billfish715]

When my son was in the Cub Scouts, I used to take some of the boys from his den on a fishing trip to a nearby panfish pond. One of the prerequisites for them was to go out at night and pick their own bait........night crawlers. It was a great entertainment and a real (pardon the pun) hands on activity. Those (now) men, still talk about it.

In reminiscing about this topic, it made me remember the bait shops that so many towns used to have. Just about every sportshop sold bait and tackle as well as baseball, football, and other sports and recreational equipment. If you lived in Union County there was Ruddy's in Clark, the Cranford Sport Shop, Coles in Scotch Plains, Red's in Elizabeth, Ross's in Rahway, Drier's in Plainfield. There are very few of those type stores around anymore so all of the fishing knowledge that was gleaned from their patrons and owners is now offered by a stock clerk or cashier at Dick's or Walmart.

I could go on and on about how sad it is for most newbies to get their fishing knowledge from the Internet and not from a store owner with local and professional knowledge, but that's the way it is. So, keep the stories and advice coming because, while it's not the same as a personal tutorial, it is what many fishermen use to improve their skills.

[Fred E. Goose]

Really miss the days of "worm hunting" and flipping over every stone in Mom's garden. She, on the other hand, was not to thrilled about the disorder her garden was left in. Nowadays, apartment living has me "worm hunting" publicly (which means less and less). Unfortunately, when they see me in the woods digging around and flipping over rocks and fallen branches, the hikers and dogwalkers are very suspicious.

[Eskimo]

Really miss the days of "worm hunting" and flipping over every stone in Mom's garden. She, on the other hand, was not to thrilled about the disorder her garden was left in. Nowadays, apartment living has me "worm hunting" publicly (which means less and less). Unfortunately, when they see me in the woods digging around and flipping over rocks and fallen branches, the hikers and dogwalkers are very suspicious.

Yes, I have suffered the indignities of collecting earthworms in public.

I still have to chuckle when I think about the night I was crawling around in the parking lot of my building picking up worms after a heavy rain storm. I looked up to see the Chinese family on the second floor looking out their window like they were watching the end of the world. All of them had this look of fear and confusion on their faces. I wish I had a camera with me.

The local park is where it just gets weird. I've uncovered bizarre things like stashes of drug paraphernalia.

I've had trail-walkers react like they were about to die at the hands of a serial killer after I stood up holding a garden trowel. That hurt my feelings.

But I do it anyway because technology has never created a more effective panfish bait than the lowly earthworm.


.

[Billfish715]

The simple things in life are too soon overlooked and forgotten. Gathering free bait is just one of those things. Now, picking nightcrawlers in a public area at night with a flashlight is liable to spark a series of 911 calls about a suspicious person in the area. I have my doubts if even the local law enforcement people would understand what was going on even after an explanation.

Most kids today won't ever know the fun they can have hunting for bait especially for worms, as long as they know they can buy them somewhere. As I mentioned before, buying bait was not an option when I was a kid and wanted to go fishing. We would dig bait in backyard gardens, or in a farmer's manure pile ( Oh, yes we did.) or turning over leaves in the woods to find those slimy, soft bodied worms that broke in half on the hook. Or we would make minnow traps out of clear gallon glass containers, or dough balls with flour from mom's kitchen. We sometimes seined minnows with burlap potato sacks that we got from the local grocer. Nobody thought twice about gathering maggots from a road killed animal. There was something about which to be proud whenever you caught a fish with bait that you had made or gathered.

[Fred E. Goose]

I've had trail-walkers react like they were about to die at the hands of a serial killer after I stood up holding a garden trowel. That hurt my feelings.



That's too funny.



There was something about which to be proud whenever you caught a fish with bait that you had made or gathered.



Absolutely true.