Growing your own worms?

[timfives]

Anybody on the forum growing their own worms for fishing. I thought it would be fun to do with the kids, but curious if anyone had any success doing this?

thanks

t

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Growing your own worms?

You're weird.

 

[R Socey]

Re: Growing your own worms?

My brother did twice - bought all the right stuff, and said that the problem was they needed alot of maintainance. If a worm dies there
is a chain reaction, and by the time you smell it, it's too late. Maybe someone else has had better luck.

 

[timfives]

Re: Growing your own worms?

My brother did twice - bought all the right stuff, and said that the problem was they needed alot of maintainance. If a worm dies there
is a chain reaction, and by the time you smell it, it's too late. Maybe someone else has had better luck.

thanks for the reply, i would have thought that they were pretty low maintenance as people use them for composting.. That said, you raise an interesting point..

T

 

[timfives]

Re: Growing your own worms?

You're weird.

This is what happens when there is no boat to restore..

T

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Growing your own worms?

There's a few good threads about worm farming here"

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/live-bait/

 

[foodfisher]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Grandpa allways made me get the worms from the compost pile for our fishing. Fed the family many meals.

 

[rolmops]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Yep, my worm farm is a very heavy producer,but is not so much for fishing.It is my organic garden fertilizer producer. I tried night crawlers but those guys take several years to grow to a decent size, the smaller ones do better. You can just go to Wallmart and buy some worm growing soil. (it really is shredded paper) add some water and some worms and keep it in a cool place.You can add some leaves or compost if you want to go bigger.
I tried in a big old cooler,a 5 gallon pail and a hole in the ground. The cooler worked ok,the pail tends too get hot or some mold may get in and kill everything. The hole in the ground works great.Once you have established a population, they will grow and increase fast while at the same time attracting other worms including night crawlers from the area.At one point I tried to add fish guts to the fertilizer/worm farm pile only to find out that raccoons really like them...

 

[bonz_d]

Re: Growing your own worms?

If you can find it, long ago there was a book titled "Nightcrawler Secrets". Very good reading for what you're asking.

 

[southkogs]

Re: Growing your own worms?

We've got a pretty sizable garden at our place ... 5 minutes digging through the beds, and you've got a pretty decent fishing arsenal.

 

[R Socey]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Don't add chlorinated water to them or they will die.

 

[timfives]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. We have a little garden here, so i may go down and dig around and see whats what. I'm also going to look for the book "Nightcrawler Secrets" - may make for some interesting reading.

Appreciate the quality info!

Tim

 

[Mark_VTfisherman]

Re: Growing your own worms?

If it is just a money thing, then go for it. However, not having much $$ usually (sgl parent no support) I have found that my time is more valuable than my money quite often. I have bought bulk boxes of 500 crawlers for like 12-15-cents per each which is pretty cheap. Refrigerator is best place to keep them- they can last a whole summer into fall if kept cool, not too wet, and not too dry. Partially dry coffee grounds can be added in small amounts as well- makes them more active for fishing. Not really - just kidding I also had two dozen crawlers in the fridge from fall 2010 still alive the following May...

 

[Tail_Gunner]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Back in the 70's...we would go to a local college campus and harvest night crawlers after a rain storm in the evenings. Years prior to that the campus had simply planted them there for what reason i do not know but for 8 city block's around that campus and after a storm one could collect 10 dozen worm's in a very short period of time.

My father of course decided to grow his own farm and used the whole back yard..we must have released a 1000 crawler's that spring it was annoying. However to this day you can go out in that yard on a summer night after a rain and get as many crawlers as your heart desires...As matter as fact its the whole neighbor hood.. it's funny to watch maybe 15-20 people walking around with flashlights exclaiming Look at that ONE..

Time has come and gone i guess someday i should go back to the neighborhood and let them know how they became the local worm farm...

 

[Mark_VTfisherman]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Interesting on "planting" crawlers.

Here in Vermont they are everywhere all naturally, some places better than others.

I am not a great picker (miss a lot) but I have a friend who runs a tackle shop and can pick hundreds of crawlers in an hour. Places that are good to pick are those that get mowed often and are well-fertilized. Sports fields and such, red-colored flashlights, warm, damp/wet moonlit night after 11pm works for him.

After re-reading OP I realize you are trying to do something fun for the kids- I would recommend aerating your lawn several times/year, de-thatching in the spring, and fertilizing it often as recommended by local extension office. They will probably want to see a core sample of the lawn to determine clay/sand/vegetable matter and make recommendations as to making the soil healthy and how often to water. With the soil healthy and the grass being cut often night crawlers will be happy and propagating. They will be as actively re-populating as the support structure of the soil- you will have a gazillion in a healthy lawn, not many in hard, unhealthy lawn.

Side benefit: greenest lawn in the neighborhood. Think golf course

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Have you ever considered raising Gerbils for bait?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05uJp1YvzcY&ob=av3e

 

[kfa4303]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Around here folks go "grunting" for worms. You just stick and iron bar in the ground about 1 ft., usually after a good rain, then rake an old piece of 2 x 4 over the top of it and VOILA! up they come. You just pick up as many as need and off you go. They even did an episodes on Dirty Jobs about it, and yes it's very real. In fact, there's a worm grunting festival every year. For saltwater fishing, we also go dig up sand fleas in the surf, which are they best mackerel/pompano/cobia bait you can get. You just wade out about knee-waist deed in the surf, scoop up some sugar sand in a shovel and dump it into a screen like they use at archaeology digs. After the sand washes away you're left with a screen full of sand fleas. They looks sort of like large, opalescent, rollie-pollies. Put one on the tip of a jig and hold on tight. Good luck with your worm hunt!

 

[wellsc1]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Hybrid wrigglers work wonders in my worm box. It got started about 2 years ago with about 300 worms and now has probably a couple thousand or so. The bedding is nothing but Spagham peat moss. Worms are water no more than once a week and fed with feed store grade corn meal. Once in an while they get stale bread or hot dog buns. Lately, the treat has been banana peels. Cover it with sheets of newspaper and you have happy cozy worms. All I have to do is fold back the newspaper and pick up hundreds in a few seconds - no digging. Keep the box covered but it should allow air in the box. The box is outside under the trees whether it's 99 degrees or 23 degrees. Also, keep the ground treated to kill ants so the worms stay happy and cozy.

 

[captianlake]

Re: Growing your own worms?

Get you a couple of rabbits in a cage and before long you will have all the worms you want

 

[bgc]

Re: Growing your own worms?

I went out one evening and collected a bunch of night crawlers during a rain storm. I fed them news paper and pureed vegetable peels that I kept frozen in zip-lock bags. After 2 years of this i came to the realization it was not for me......