Nightcrawlers

[Eskimo]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.


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[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]

Originally Posted by Eskimo

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.

Originally Posted by Billfish715

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

Absolutely true.