Fishing with worms

 

Fish love live bait…but it can cost a bit if you use it often so you can keep the costs down if you “home grow” some of it…and the easiest live bait is worms.

 

I’ve always grown worms at home… I’ve had them for decades! They are simple to house and feed, they reproduce fast and their castings (poo) are one of the best organic fertilisers around.

 

There’s a couple of different types of worms but my favorites are tiger worms…not because they make the very best live bait but because they are so easy to raise… and they catch a range of fish.

 

I’ve caught trout, redfin, cod…and even estuary fish like bream and mullet with them…and the worms are active on the hook for a while so they are a great visible attractor. They also have a strong scent that helps fish locate them in coloured water.

 

If you are going to raise them and keep a steady supply on hand you don’t need to buy a commercially made “worm” farm. I have used these in the past and they work well as long as they are never in the sun…’cause a hot worm is a dead worm!

I solved this problem years ago by  constructing  my own worm farm….and it’s really simple…

build a brick or cement square- directly on the earth, in the shade, and keep it moist and topped with vegetable kitchen scraps….that’s it…

…and “Yes”, the farm is on the earth so the worms can escape…but only if you don’t feed them. It’s good for them to be able to retreat into the earth on very hot days and come back to feed when it cools down.

If you put plenty of vegetable matter in your farm then the worms will always be there…very close to the food.

 

The worm farm can be made of bricks stacked on each other. I usually make mine 3 or 4 bricks high and use a wooden or steel sheet as a roof. A structure 3 bricks long and 3 to 4 bricks wide is plenty of space to raise a heap of them. Place an old piece of carpet or sack or any material that will hold water on top and this will help keep the moisture near the surface, especially in Summer

…and as the weather gets warmer they will multiply like crazy…and this is the next benefit to just providing you with bait…they provide you with berley!

 

Fishing with worms is so much more effective when you use them as berley too.

 

I know anglers who take 300grams of worms with them when they fish. They keep some for hook bait and cut the rest up and add them to their berley.

If you add the chopped worms to some bread crumbs, mix in a bit of water – you have some first class berley that no fish can resist.

 

When puting worms on the hook make sure you don’t kill them. Put the hook though 2 places on the body and leave plenty of wiggling ends to attract the fish.

Use  2 or 3 worms at a time so the bait looks like a good feed for any red blooded fish in the area .

 

Unfortunately worms are soft bodied and come off the hook quite easily….so you can loose a few to smaller fish that just pick them off the hook….

If this happens I usually keep rebaiting until the big ones to come in…

…but if it gets too frustrating I change to a smaller hook and thread a single worm on the hook so the fish can’t suck the ends off ….this often gets a hookup!

 

The other way to use worms is “free lining” them.

This works in running water where you use worms on a hook with no sinker and just let the line out so the current takes it. This works really well if you also throw out single or chopped worms into the current at regular intervals…

It can be a killer method for trout and Redfin.

 

So never under estimate the humble worm as bait….and try raising them yourself so you always have worms!

 

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