papaperch
Active member
Anybody else pick and keep their own nightcrawlers. Windy and rainy last night but managed to pick apprx. 400. This took less than an hour.
I have fridge in garage and keep them in styrofoam flats. Usually keep in storage 500-1500 on hand. Anymore than that it gets to be a headache in caring for them. The Canadian Nightcrawler's range doesn't go much beyond middle of Ohio. These worms must be stored in temps @ 40 F.
When I first learned about picking we did it standing bent over with a flashlight. Which is the hardest and slowest way of doing it. On non-rainy nights I use raingear pants , a lightweight adjustable head lamp and crawl around on all fours.
Most ever picked in one night. Friend and I managed 26,000 in one night at a golf course. Which was 52 flats of 500 each. That night was an aberration. It had rained so hard that thousands of worms were flushed from their holes. Instead of picking them we actually scooped them that night. At the time we were getting 20 dollars a flat wholesale. Though we worked @ 12 hours that day friend and I still say it was the easiest 1000 dollar day we ever had.
The next day when we physically counted and sorted the worms in their individual flats was the hardest 1000 I ever worked for.
Best book I ever read on this subject was titled " The Nightcrawler Manual ".
I forget the author's name but he knew his stuff.
I have fridge in garage and keep them in styrofoam flats. Usually keep in storage 500-1500 on hand. Anymore than that it gets to be a headache in caring for them. The Canadian Nightcrawler's range doesn't go much beyond middle of Ohio. These worms must be stored in temps @ 40 F.
When I first learned about picking we did it standing bent over with a flashlight. Which is the hardest and slowest way of doing it. On non-rainy nights I use raingear pants , a lightweight adjustable head lamp and crawl around on all fours.
Most ever picked in one night. Friend and I managed 26,000 in one night at a golf course. Which was 52 flats of 500 each. That night was an aberration. It had rained so hard that thousands of worms were flushed from their holes. Instead of picking them we actually scooped them that night. At the time we were getting 20 dollars a flat wholesale. Though we worked @ 12 hours that day friend and I still say it was the easiest 1000 dollar day we ever had.
The next day when we physically counted and sorted the worms in their individual flats was the hardest 1000 I ever worked for.
Best book I ever read on this subject was titled " The Nightcrawler Manual ".
I forget the author's name but he knew his stuff.
Used to break half of them off in the hole. Had my son out a few times last year and he loved it - has already asked me this year if i needed to get worms. Think he would rather gather worms than actually fish. ha!