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Worm storage.

Jeff Collins

No Longer a Member
Had a lot of bad news lately. All in all me and the missus are splitting up. Trying to look on the bright side I'll have more time to fish. I fancy catching a beard on a natural bait and as money is forecasted to be tight I wondered what's the best way to store worms. Ive googled and all sorts of ridiculous things have come up ie south facing rooms.

Any serious ideas welcomed.

Cheers

Jeff
 
Sorry to here things are not going well .No real consolation but you could build yourself a wormery . Get a plastic household dustbin, drill a few holes in it about 3 inch up from the bottom and a few about 6 inch from the top plus in the lid . Fill bottom for about 8 inches with pebbles , then fill near to top with leaves , grass cuttings , chopped up newspaper . You can top up with vegetable peeling from time to time, don't put any other sort of household waste in . Get yourself a stock of worms , I would say approx 100 , water sparingly in hot weather .The little devils will breed like fury and you will have a never ending supply of worms once they get going :D
 
By far I have found the easiest way to get a fresh supply of worms is to lay an old rug or carpet either on grass or even a patio will supply you with plenty. Of course the weather is key, damp mild weather is better which is when the barbel like to scoff 'em.

Nothing wrong with the good advice on the wormey dustbin mind, and I have had a few in the past, but I start with good intentions and it then all falls away.

Hope you like Eels.:eek:
 
Lob worms are expensive, but it's easy to collect them for free! In the spring months, when the weather is warm and rain dampens the earth, go out when it's dark and crawl about on your neighbours' freshly mowed lawns, or even better a cricket pitch where the grass is cut short. Use a torch with a red beam as white light will cause them to shoot back into their holes. When you spot a worm you'll need to decide which is the head end then trap the other end with your finger and then pull them from their hole. The best medium to store them in is sphagnum moss - this will also help harden them off. Mashed potato (without salt) or layers mash (chicken food) can be used to feed them.

Lobbys are a great bait for barbel, but unfortunately chub and eels also find them irrisistable!
 
All the above will work Jeff, but the key with all methods is to keep them slightly damp, but above all cool. NEVER leave them where the sun can get on the container. I use a large plastic tub (the size that have a carrying handle and are big and strong enough to use as a makeshift seat....which is doubly handy :p). Punch lots of small (2mm or so) holes in the lid, then two thirds fill it with sphagnum moss, or if you can't get that, shredded and lightly dampened newspaper....or a mixture of both.

Place the worms on top of the media and let them wriggle through, and again, make sure that whatever you use stays very slightly damp, NOT saturated. While storing, place the tub somewhere cool, the concrete floor of a garage or other brick built outbuilding is ideal. The worms usually migrate to the bottom of the media, so turn the tub upside down occasionally so that they have to work their way back through the media, and then the next day turn it back up the right way. This cleans them and turns them into tough, mean wriggle machines :D

Lastly, turn the media by hand occasionally and remove any dead or dying worms, as decaying worms can kill the whole tub. If you use the excellent 'red torchlight on a damp night' collection method to get stock, discard any that snap or are otherwise damaged during collection (it happens). Alternatively, if you are going fishing soon after collection, place the damaged ones in a separate tub and use them first, and discard any of that lot that are left after your trip.

Kept in this way, they will last for weeks, even months. Let them get warm though, or completely dry out, and they will be dead in hours.

Good luck,

Dave.
 
I use hundreds of worms a season . 300 a month and I just buy them I got 3 big buckets I keep them in . While perching the severn I has loads of barbel just under 10lb while other anglers using meat pellets was blanking
 
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