Hunting Night Crawlers !!!!!!!

[jlperkins]

Was just sitting thinking about the good times me and my grand pa had, one in particular was the spring night crawler hunts, after or during a rain at night, we would get our flashlights a bucket and head to his favorite hunting spots, These spots were highly coveted and secretive as you couldnt just go anywhere to find them, And there was a lot of other people also hunting them, The general way to hunt was to walk softly through the yard or field using the flashlight to search for them, as any quick movement or shaking of the ground would send them Very quickly diving back in there hole, You would then bend over and grab the night crawler before it made it back in its hole, I can remember catching over 100 in a few hours, he then had a cellar with 2 large stone crocks he would keep them in, He would keep the tops of the crocks of covered with moss he collected out of the woods, and feed them coffee grounds and other table scraps, We would have night crawlers all summer long to fish with, Just wandering if any one else and what states have hunted Night Crawlers

[Wayne P.]

Did it many times and mostly in mulch beds. A lot easier to grab them than in grass/weeds.

[MIbassyaker]

My uncle's backyard, just across town from our house growing up was just loaded with crawlers! My brothers and I would go over there and hunt them with my cousin, exactly as you said -- trying to slosh around carefully after a rain with a flashlight, competing who could get the biggest one or the most. We were never careful enough or knowledgeable enough to keep them alive and fresh very long, though.

[Catch 22]

Long ago I found a golf course near Clayton ,NY that was exceptional  for them. Not sure how the greens keeper would feel about that.

Best places I ever found was  by driving around after a rain. They look like straw strewn on the road.. I just used a whisk broom to sweep them into a flat edge container.

For some reason they seem to much faster than ever before:]

[Darren.]

I remember going out at night after the baseball and 
soccer fields, or golf courses were watered armed only 
with a flashlight and coffee can. Man there were some
big crawlers there.

Also in NY, we'd venture into a local graveyard that was
always full of crawlers at night, and tons of garter snakes
by day!

[BrianinMD]

Did this ever summer growing up, best areas I had was the family garden area. Have not done it 25-30 years, well have not used live bait at all in around 8.

[Ersteman]

I've hunted nightcrawlers 2 times, with the 2nd time being most memorable. 

I hosed down the front yard in the afternoon despite my dad telling me that I was not allowed to do it.  Then it got dark, I snuck outside and started to collect the worms.   As I was snatching the squirmy buggers, my dad comes out of the front porch.  He had his fists up like he was going to fight someone and he yells in a mean deep voice  "Whose there!?!"  I said "it's me dad".  "Then he swore, but he relaxed.  He thought I was a burgler.  I guess I'm lucky my dad doesn't carry. lol.  

[scaleface]

I just pick them up in the streets after a hard rain . When I was a kid I had a four foot section of culvert pipe sunk in the ground and covered . . I kept the crawlers in a styrofoam cooler and would keep them in that pipe . I was also told to feed them coffee grounds . Do worms really eat coffee grounds ?

[BrownBear]

@jlperkins yeah I remember doing the exact same thing when I was a kid in West "by God" Virginia. Man, those were great times! We would also put the coffee grounds in with food scraps as well. Mom would always try to get our worms for her vegetable garden so we had to hide them from her...lol. Thanks for stirring up some old memories!

[Master Bait'r]

Reminds me of the great Night Crawl of '98.  We done rassled a 20lb'er out of that dagum 'ol manure pile.  Ain't never seent nuthin' like it again.    

[Derekbass02]

My backyard is a good spot to hunt for them. My brother caught a 16 inch one once. They work good on smallmouth.

[Paul Roberts]

Oh yes. As kids we had a particular yard that was thick with them on rainy nights. And we got pretty good at quickly and efficiently extracting them. We also heard about using a dilute bleach solution to chase them up out of he ground during daylight. It worked, but the worms always died within a few days, so we stopped doing it.

Last year I was in SE Asia and found some worm holes and castings in a small park near our urban home. I was especially hoping to find an Asian Giant Earthworm. So I took my son out after some rains looking for worms. But the pesticide applications made for very poor worming. Pesticides were understandable owing to the prvalence of Dengue and Malaria, however the urban set were afraid of any life form with more, or less, than two legs. We did capture an Asian Blind/Worm Snake that looked like a dark worm except that it was dry to the touch.

Then, one afternoon, after a good tropical downpour, I found a giant earthworm sticking out from a crack in the sidewalk! It's head was a good half-inch in diameter. I grabbed it, grossing out passersby, except for the kids whose mom's shooed them away. I wrestled with it for a few long seconds before it broke! I admonished myself for rushing things, although I was rusty at the art of worm-wrangling, and it appears that that type of worm is rather soft. I never did see another.

Check this out (scroll to the bottom):

http://www.broadsheet.ie/tag/worm/

 

[Ratherbfishing]

Night crawlers were always too fast and/or only halfway out their holes by the time I got to them.  Most of the time, if I got a hold of one, an epic tug of war would ensue which would,ultimately, result in either a damaged worm (which later died) or half a worm.  OCCASIONALLY I would emerge victorious (or the worm would emerge vanquished) but not often.  One reason why I moved to artificials.  

[Robeng]

Catch them in Michigan and have in Kentucky with my Uncle back in the day.  

[BillinDurham]

...many, many nights.  Catching bait was just as much a part of fishing as fixing tackle or buying lures.

Learned how to win the tug of war (they pull in pulses so you just do the opposite).  Tinting or dimming the flashlight made it so they wouldn't react to the light.  Keep them in the refrigerator with everything from newspaper to store bought worm bedding.

Up north (Pgh) night crawlers were everywhere.  Down here in NC it just seems to be lttle 'wrigglers'.  Perhaps the only creature that is smaller down here than up north.

Now I just play around with them in the mulch pile before going out to bang the bass in the head with artificials.

[Bruce424]

Oh heck yea!! My neighbors thought me and my dad were nuts.

[Buckeye Ron]

I have wonderful memories of going out with my dad and catching a bunch of night crawlers before going fishing the next day. What might seem silly to others are often the things that stick with us for a life time.

[Senko lover]

I tried going to the golf course across the street a couple of years ago after a rain, but they must treat the grass because I didn't find any. 

[HoosierHawgs]

Tried it once. I am building a vegetable garden and flower bed this spring, so hopefully that will make for more successful worming efforts. 

[RAMBLER]

In Wisconsin, we had them in our front yard.  Found out that some red cellophane over the flashlight kept the light from scaring the crawlers so much.  The hardest part was finding the red cellophane (that was in the 50s).

[Buckeye Ron]

11 hours ago, Senko lover said:

I tried going to the golf course across the street a couple of years ago after a rain, but they must treat the grass because I didn't find any. 

I don't have them in my yard for the same reason. They don't like all the fertilizers and weed killing products that get sprayed on my yard. I'm surrounded by farm fields and if I don't treat the yard it wants to revert back to weeds.

[Topwaterspook]

As kids we would hunt them at night in the Spring on an oiled dirt road that ran between two plowed fields. After a good afternoon rain they were all over the road surface. All we had to do was pick them up. Two good nights on that 150 yard stretch of road produced enough bait to last four of us all summer long. Good memories.............haven't thought about this in years.

[Bluebasser86]

It seems like everyone I know has tons of crawlers in their yards, except for me. Until the last couple years I use to grab a few hundred of them and keep them in the basement and just use them as needed throughout the year. Now we don't have a basement and no way my wife is going to be okay with a cooler of crawlers in the fridge. 

[HoosierHawgs]

Not to hijack the thread but, has anybody on here built a worm box, where they grow worms in compost? I think it's a neat idea.

[Bluebasser86]

18 minutes ago, HoosierHawgs said:

Not to hijack the thread but, has anybody on here built a worm box, where they grow worms in compost? I think it's a neat idea.

Yes, I use to have one in the basement of our old farm house. They kept very well but the dirt had to be turned constantly looking for dead ones because if one dies, they all die. I have a book somewhere on farming them with a ton of information.