Nightcrawlers.

[Fishing Rhino]

Tried a search that yielded nothing, including searching all posts for the word nightcrawlers, not case sensitive.

Here's my question.  Has anyone tried nightcrawlers, I mean the good sized paddletail nightcrawlers from 4 to 6 inches long instead of the plastic jobs?  

I used to get nightcrawlers years ago on nights when the dew was heavy or it had just rained.  A flashlight with less than new batteries was best, since a bright light sent them scurrying into the earth.

In fact, most times it was best to concentrate on the edges of the lighted area.

I'm planning on reliving my childhood a bit by catching a bunch of nightcrawlers and keeping them in a bucket of soil and mulch.  Worked like a charm many years ago.

I'd like to try them in place of the plastic stuff, but can see a downside that the little fish of all species could nibble them away.

I'd also like to try them as a trailer on jigs and spinnerbaits, but again, they are quite fragile and could be easily "stolen" from the hook.

I'd appreciate any input, pro and con.

[Branuss04]

http://www.trophybassonly.com/id138.htm....;  

[Sam]

Wal-Mart has Nightcrawlers.

Around $3.00 or less for two dozen.

[Fishing Rhino]

Wal-Mart has Nightcrawlers.

Around $3.00 or less for two dozen.

I can get 'em for free for a few minutes work.  It'll make me feel like a kid again.  

They are easy to keep in a bucket or tub.  It must have holes to allow water to drain.  Keep the bucket in a shady spot, keep it moist, and they'll last until a hard freeze.

I'd dump 'em out before then.

[Fishing Rhino]

http://www.trophybassonly.com/id138.htm....;

I'm sold.  

I can always have a pole or two with worms and bobbers fishing while casting other lures.

The price is right, they are biodegradable, and, they pose no hazard to the fish.  Not counting the hook on which the worm is impaled

Thanks for that reply.

[brian_82]

Wal-Mart has Nightcrawlers.

Around $3.00 or less for two dozen.

I can get 'em for free for a few minutes work. It'll make me feel like a kid again.

Yea and an aging person when your back is killing you from walking bent over.

Worms will work though. Fish em t rigged the same as plastics.

[BassFishingMachine]

I rarely, if ever use live bait for bass. Nightcrawlers just attract too many sunnies. In the waters I fish if you were to cast out a nightcrawler 99% of the time a sunny would come over and tear it up. Theres just that many sunnies.. If you manage to catch a bass on one, your lucky.

Although, I can imagine sight fishing would work great with nightcrawlers. You know, on the days when you walk around with your polarized sun glasses, and see the bass hangin in the shallows. Im sure gently casting weightless nightcrawlers to em would work. Or spawn fishing.

When I see a fish hangin in the shallows, sometimes what I'll do to play around is this. I'll flip over a few logs and pull out 2-3 worms. I'll then throw one to the bass I saw, and watch him devour it. I'll wait a few secs and throw him another, and this time they start becoming even more aggressive. (Let it be known that the worms I have thrown the fish are not hooked, I am merely feeding the fish) Then after I have fed the fish 2-3 worms, I'll rig up a GYCB Kut-Tail in cinnamon brown (it looks just like a worm). And I'll gently cast that to him, and the fish won't even question it, it just immediately devours the kut-tail. And thats when I set the hook .

[jwo1124]

Hey BFM thats a d**n good idea. Obviously don;t try that if you're tourney fishing but otherwise why not. It's like chumming. I might have to try that out in the spring. I'm with the other guys though when they say that the sunfish will steal the nightcrawlers.

It is fun to bait fish sometimes, especially on hot summer days when you enjoy just being outside in the sun as much as setting the hook on a big bass.

I think the older we get the more we look at fishing as a sport with rules and regulations and less as a good clean fun past time we enjoyed as kids. Fishing can become complicated, but the Keep it Simple Stupid approach seems to work: Have a couple rods with a hand full of proven lures and have fun.

[SenkoShawn]

as u can see my name im a big rubber guy.  u stated the  main reasons i never used everytime ive tryd with my daughter they get snagged by panfish 9/10 of the time

however im really thinking about what u said as a trailer on a jig.. that might work for me. im thinking on a spinnerbait itd fall off way to easy cause of the action its fished but the jig i can see working.

[Fishing Rhino]

Wal-Mart has Nightcrawlers.

Around $3.00 or less for two dozen.

I can get 'em for free for a few minutes work. It'll make me feel like a kid again.

Yea and an aging person when your back is killing you from walking bent over.

Worms will work though. Fish em t rigged the same as plastics.

Nah, the aches and pains only bother me when doing something I don't like.  They seem to vanish when I'm doing things I enjoy.

[bassnleo]

Wierd timing for this thread, here's why:

In the off season I fish Lake Erie tribs for steelhead. We either bait or fly fish depending on our mood. It gets pretty technical with the fly stuff, bait stuff is usually tossing egg sacks, emerald shiners, single eggs, jigs and maggots.....

Just last week a buddy and I decided to go old school. We went with nothing other than nightcrawlers and fished them under Drennan floats.

Man did we have a ball...We actually had other anglers come up us and ask what we were using. You should have seen the looks we got when we told them nightcrawlers!

Guess the fish just hadn't seen many

[Fishing Rhino]

I'm definitely going to try it.  

Some of the best times I've had fishing was when I was a kid with a bamboo pole, a hook a bobber, and a can of worms.  It was always an adventure.  The bobber was usually a cork, sliced lengthwise to the center.  Pull the line into the slit, and slide the cork to the desired distance from the hook to determine the depth of the bait.

We used kite string for line.  My dad would tie the line at the tip of the pole, leaving several feet of line on the non-fishing end.  Then he'd bend the tip of the rod and tie the line again, two or three feet from the tip.

Then he'd use half hitches and work the line down toward the butt end, finishing up where the pole was gripped.  If the tip snapped, you did not lose the fish or your terminal gear.

I never understood why the bend at the tip, unless it was to put tension in the end to help with hook sets.  Hook sets being something that never entered my mind in those days.  When the bobber went under, you pulled in the fish.

Ahhh, the simpler life of youth.

[Btech]

I would recomend finding 10-20 or more and making a worm bed (I just started a thread today on this)

Itsnt hard from what im researching and can cost less than 30 bucks.

Not to mention an unlimited about of nightcrawlers without having to bend over or find them with flashlights

[Fishing Rhino]

I would recomend finding 10-20 or more and making a worm bed (I just started a thread today on this)

Itsnt hard from what im researching and can cost less than 30 bucks.

Not to mention an unlimited about of nightcrawlers without having to bend over or find them with flashlights

I did something like that years ago.  Put some soil in a bucket and a bunch of forest decay, and some leaves, and kept it moist, but not wet.

I don't know how fast worms multiply or how fast they grow, but that bucket never ran out of worms.  When I dumped it in the fall, it seemed like there were more worms than I had originally put in it.

A kid's imagination or not, they were all fat and healthy.  

I'll check out your thread.  I have an old bathtub out back that I used years ago to keep minnows.  It is cracked so it will allow water to drain, but not allow worms to escape.  If the bed requires a container, it should do the trick.  It's certainly large enough.

[bilgerat]

If you have the room, make a compost pile. All the worms you want, although they disappear about late October around here.

Use grass clippings, leaves, anything organic. Add in kitchen waste like eggshells, coffee grounds, fruit rinds, stale or moldy bread, etc.

Add cornmeal, the worms love it. Compost piles don't stink either, you just have to "turn" them over every week or so. (use a pitchfork)

DONT add meat scraps or bones, dog crap or anything like that. Then it will stink, attract critters you don't want and add harmful bacteria to the compost, which can damage any plants you may put the compost around.

[Scorcher214]

I'd also like to try them as a trailer on jigs and spinnerbaits, but again, they are quite fragile and could be easily "stolen" from the hook.

I'd appreciate any input, pro and con.

I use them on spinners and jigs, i think it works great, dont use a whole night crawler though use like a half or a quarter of one because they are huge, the only bad thing is they come off a lot and if there are blue gills or perch, be ready for constatnt re-baiting.

[NBR]

I don't use them often any more but on ocassion on a trip where I might run into a severe cold front or two I'll take a dozen or so along. Usually they get dumped before I head home. I'm too lazy to use them and most of the time artificials do the trick.

A great book is Lunkers Love Nightcrawlers by I think Spence Petros