Thread: Worms

good price for worms!
http://www.wormman.com/pd_red.cfm

Our two worm boxes are producing a steady supply of small redworms. Right now, they are mostly being used for composting kitchen vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells, but come winter, the larger ones will go ice fishing with us. I bought the composting type which are a bit smaller than the redworms commonly sold for bait. They won't survive in an outdoor environment, bu tthey sure are thriving in their stryofoam coolers.

This week, we added a third box containing nightcrawlers, when the ranger sent us home with the leftover bait from Hooked on Fishing. I thought maybe there were a couple or three dozen left. Holy moly, we have hundreds! Looks like we'll be doing more worm fishing than usual this summer.

BTW, KMart stopped selling the Frabill dry worm bedding and went to the ready-to-use. That's fine for your bait box, but you get a third as much as the dry for the same price. WalMart is selling Brown Bear Bait Co. dry worm bedding for a couple of dollars. - Roberta

I use the nightcrawlers from wally world. Keep a piece of cedar shingle & a cheapo paring knife on the boat and cut each crawler in 8 pieces on the average. Caught around a 1,000 fish in the last month on one 24 count tub of crawlers. Crappie,White Perch,Yellow Perch,Pumpkinseed,Bass & Pickerel. A plain hook or tube jig tipped with a piece of crawler. The point of the hook must be hidden with the crawler. Put hook in through the skin,thread on the hook & hide the point in the skin. I keep the crawlers in a 6 pack cooler with ice on the boat. They do not like temperature change.

Follow Roberta's advice and you'll have plenty of healthy worms. Also try and keep them in a cool, dark place and remember not to overwater them. Just keep the bedding moist.

On a side note : my girlfriend keeps her leftover worms in the fridge between trips and they usually last a month or so before going bad.

Just remember to mark them so your other half dosn't open it thinking it's leftover chinese takeout. YEIKES

Tight Lines BB

if i know that ill have worms in the fridge a while ill feed them a little instant grits or cream of wheat works good

go to walmart or meijers and in the sporting goods you shouls find a "magic" worm farm kit itll get you started on it. all u need to do is add declorified fresh water and worms accordingly to the insructions. it comes with a styrofoam tub with a nice lid with plastic air hole inserts and a tow rope. also it comes with 1 and a quarter lb. of the worm bedding and a few ounces of magic worm food (its probably just cornstarch and flour mixture) it works and hold up to 100 worms but u have to change the bedding every 6 weeks but its cheap as all get out. its a great way to cheat the bait store haha!

Originally Posted by dmbutler47

Anyone keep their own worms? I am tired of the bait store hours and wal-mart was out of worms for a week. I saw at Gander Mountain they had a styrofoam container for keeping worms. How long should they last in it? How much trouble or smell are they to keep?

Finally got off my rear and took some pics of my babys and loaded them on the computer!
The first pic is of the bed with the cover on. Framed the bed with railroad ties 4'x8'. Dug it about 18" deep. Filled with mixture of sawdust, rabbit manure, cow manure, top soil, humis, dead leaves and peatmoss. Mixed together real good and let sit about two weeks to get the heat out of the bed before I introduced the worms. Got 500 worms (wigglers/earthworms) from my Dad's good friend over in good ole Alabama. I feed the worms every two weeks, raw vegetables (nothing cooked), non medicated chicken feed and coffee grounds from my work. I rake the dead leaves back spread the feed and recover. The leaves keep the moisture in and the cold out. This time of year I have to add some water because the bed will get dry. Notice how I built the lid with legs so there will be a gap for air between the lid and the bed.

Here is the bed with the lid up. I just lean on the fence so I can feed or dig.

Here is with the leaves raked off the bed for feeding.

Here is a pic of the top. Notice all the holes? This is for when it rains, it allows water in without flooding the bed. It has rained for days and it won't let enough water in to drown the worms.

Now to introduce you all to my babys, I sure do love them!:D :p

My neighbor has a big Magnolia tree in her front yard. I can go over there anytime, day or night, and pretty much any time of year and just rake the leaves out of the way and find as many as I want. Put the leaves back, come back when I need more. They are right on the top of the dirt most of the time. It's amazing how many there are and how easy they are to get. They are sometimes huge too. I have grabbed several that were around 6 or 7 inches long and as fat as my finger.