how to get worms for livebait

[Mr.Sheephead]

I have heard of worm charming or grunting by vibrating the ground to get worms to come to the surface but I had'nt had any success with this method i have tried everywere and just to day I tried it and soon after I quit 15 minutes later i saw two worms on the surface for some reason. guess it works but very little success.

I can dig for them but that's messy and i don't know were you would dig for them

also I have seen people pour water around the base of a tree and worms seconds later will rise to the surface but what I don't know about it is if they are using tap water natural water or some kind of mixture to get the worms to surface.

can anyone help me figure a way to get worms for fishing without having to buy them?

[chubaka]

Water your grass before the sunset. Then at night go outside with a flash light and look for them

[Hornytoad 10]

find a cow/horse pasture and flip over the dried 'piles' (poop) and they should appear just like magic!, or just find some moist ground and flip over rocks or pieces of tree bark, hope this helps.

[badog]

Take a piece of black roofing paper put it in your garden on top of the dirt, check it the next day. you should find worms . I used this method all summer last year and never spent a dime on worms!!!!!

Badog

[florida strain]

I use  a hard rake under citrus trees, compost piles, or washer drains, around spikitz, and sprinklers.

[LAO162]

If you have a hard, early morning downpour, at dawn go out looking for worms in driveways, side streets, sidewalks, parking lots...etc.  I used to go to my school parking lot when I was a kid.  My side street is a good enough source now.  This works best in Spring.  If you wait to late in the morning, the early BIRDS get the worms - quite literally.

You can google hundreds of pages on how to raise worms.

[SirSnookalot]

Soapy water on your lawn.

[Mike Z]

Go to Walmart. $3 for a whole load of them.

[nightstick911]

this might sound funny but i remember camping as a kid and we had an electric worm probe that you stuck in the ground and plugged in. within a couple of minutes worms would come up out of the ground all over within about 2 feet from the probe. it was a lot easier than digging.

i just did a quick search and found the following:

http://www.discovercircuits.com/H-Corner/worm-harv.htm

i take no responsibility for anyone that wants to try this

[LAO162]

Go to Walmart. $3 for a whole load of them.

That's why I don't try to raise them in the basement anymore ;)

[Mr.Sheephead]

this might sound funny but i remember camping as a kid and we had an electric worm probe that you stuck in the ground and plugged in. within a couple of minutes worms would come up out of the ground all over within about 2 feet from the probe. it was a lot easier than digging.

i just did a quick search and found the following:

http://www.discovercircuits.com/H-Corner/worm-harv.htm

i take no responsibility for anyone that wants to try this

I'd love to try that thing seems to work with the worm charming method

thanks everyone i went and tried digging for some worms again and finally i found some worms it seemed that when you dig for them its the same as worm charming since i found a few on the surface that i hadnt spotted in the ground but at the same time i found some in the dirt the only problem i had was that alot of the were too thin that you would need a small hook to get the hook hidden some were short some pretty long and in the middle but they all had one thing in common, they were all skinny worms! any other advise i can get for getting the bigger worms?

[.dsaavedra.]

you were probably digging up red worms and earthworms. what you're after are nightcrawlers. watering the lawn thoroughly just before dark and then going out after its been dark for about an hour should yield some night crawlers.

[The Rooster]

In my experience, anytime I water my lawn, day or night, I get hoards of worms on the surface. They're all nightcrawlers and occasionally a redworm will appear also. I don't use these for bait at all now but I used to and it was always a thing we did to get them. We'd water the lawn, usually it was fairly late (dark outside) so we could get worms for the next day's fishing trip. After about 15 or 20 minutes you'll see them start to lay out on top of the ground, sometimes completely ouf of their holes and fully exposed, but a lot of times they'll still have a section of their tail in the hole. You use a flashlight to find them but DON'T directly focus the light on the worms or they'll shoot back down in the holes again. They're amazingly fast doing this too.

When we were looking for them it was common to find two of them stuck together in the act of mating. We'd holler "SEX!!" and then grab the pair of them at the same time. Sometimes we would only get one but most times we were good enough to get them both. 5 dozen FAT nightcrawlers in 30 minutes was no problem at all.

If your yard doesn't have these growing in it already, it might be a good idea to buy them and start stocking your yard. I used to get a container of nightcrawlers from Walmart sometimes when we went fishing on the spur of the moment and had no time to raise them. Whatever was left from them I would just toss out into the yard. Several years of doing this and my backyard is now a haven for them. I can run my boatmotor with the lower unit muffs on it and let the water pour out of it and on the ground around it there will be several dozen nightcrawlers just floating in the runoff in just a few minutes.

One other thing you need to know is once you have them you must keep them cool. Even cold, but not frozen. The cooler they are the more lively they will be and the longer they will last while fishing. Also, one dead one in the bunch will kill all the rest so watch for that. A rotting worm does that for some reason. And MAN, I have never smelled anything that smelled so bad as a rotting nightcrawler!!!

[.dsaavedra.]

And MAN, I have never smelled anything that smelled so bad as a rotting nightcrawler!!!

this is INCREDIBLY true... SUCH  a terrible smell...

[chromedog]

Water your lawn in the evening or if it has rained during the day just go out after dark with a flashlight and a bucket.  Been doing that since we were kids.  A little hard on the back, but light on the wallet.

[Red Bear]

when i was a kid we would go out at night in the rain with flashlights and coffee cans, you had to be quick to grab them before they shot back in their holes. also you can try pouring bleach water on the ground to bring them up. i had an uncle who put two metal posts in the ground and hooked a car battery to them to bring worms up. theres a bunch of ways to do it. its just easier to buy them though.

[timothy_spain]

soapy water will get them worms up to the surface in seconds!  u don't have to wait overnight ...

pour HOT water into the garden, and you'll get crickets! 

used to do this as a kid to catch crickets and worms...