Just when I thought I had experienced everything grand that life has to offer, along comes Big Bore with an intriguing idea that I had never tried before: hunting for night crawlers! Now I had long heard about this unusual sport in local circles. When he announced that he was going to the city park the other night to get some bait for his Thursday fishing outing, I volunteered to come along and learn the fine art of wrangling worms. It was time for me to get jiggy with it!
Armed with two flashlights and a bucket, we set off for the park after dark. Big Bore gave me instructions: be quiet and when spying the worm crawling on the grass, quickly, "Grab, Pinch, and Pull." It sounded easy enough to me, but I was soon to learn that night crawlers are crafty characters that have warp-speed reflexes. They definitely do not want to become fish bait.
Since I am near-sighted, my hunting method was to scour the ground from the hands and knees position. Once I spotted a worm, and these were most impressive champion-sized worms, I might add, I'd lunge in for the grab. More often than not, though, my prey would beat me to the punch and slither safely back into its hole in the ground. On the rare occasions when I managed to get a grip on one, a tug-of-war began. There is a trick to it. Don't squeeze and pull hard enough, it gets away. Get too forceful, it rips apart. "Come to mama. Come to mama," I'd patiently coax it. Alas, my life has plunged to the point where I'm having up close and personal conversations with worms.
At the end of our 70-minute session, the score was Big Bore 75+, Flaming Bore 5. Well, he's more experienced, but he thinks that with practice I'll increase my numbers. I hope he is right because I can't wait to get back to the park to try rounding up worms again. I have been thinking about how I can improve my technique. Next time I'm going to put some stickum-glue on my fingers. As long as the worms don't adhere permanently, I think this should work out just fine. Expect an update on this very deep subject in the near future.
2 comments:
Sounds like a funny sight. I am glad the cops didn't pull up on you two in the dark, with you on your knees saying "come to mama" Ha Ha.
I can't wait to see your score next time.
You're one step away from baiting your own hook now! :-) Jermie's wrangled me into night-crawler catching too. I'm horrible at it. I hesitate before trying to grab the things, because I really don't want to touch them. And they're pretty darn fast too! We have them in our front and back yards though, so no trips to the park. Still, I'm sure our neighbors have thought it was pretty strange! :-) Can't wait until Gabe is old enough to be dad's worm-catching partner. Then I'll actually enjoy it - I'll just have to watch!
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