Worm Calling???

**Ted** · 10-02-2010, 04:55 PM

Any you folks ever heard of or tried worm calling? I've tried it a couple times with zero results! Any pointers appriciated!

You drive a stake 2-3 feet in the ground leaving about 6 in. sticking up. Then you use a piece of flat metal and "saw" back and forth on the top of the stake.The vibration drive the worms to the top!

I saw them do this on Discovery I think, but anyway, worms came to the suface and you just picked em up! The guy doing it owned a bait shop and this is how he collected all the worms he sold!

I know a lot of you turn your nose up at eating worms and such but, properly prepared there realy good. I know I read some place, they have lots more protien per pound than beef! To me, meat is meat, and I imagine you could make pemmicin, jerky or anythig else you can do with meat with them!

**crashdive123** · 10-02-2010, 07:46 PM

Somebody posted a video quite some time ago showing it. I wouldn't have believed the results if I hadn't seen them.

**Sarge47** · 10-02-2010, 08:34 PM

Ted: 1st, I don't eat the bait, I use it to catch fish! 2nd, yes, I've seen it done right in front of my eyes. But we didn't use the sawing method. My cousin, now deceased, needed worms for fishing, & didn't want to dig any up. So he drove a long, metal rod into the ground with a heavy hammer; it may have even been a maul, it was quite a few years back. Then he beat on the side of the rod with the hammer/maul really hard until the worms came to the surface. The theory is that the vibrations on the ground fool the worms into believing it's raining & up they come!

You can also use one of those old "crank" telephones and run an electrical charge through two rods driven into the ground about 5 feet apart. The current brings them up fast!

(The movie: "Godzilla" shows this being done with a car battery.)

**Ted** · 10-02-2010, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by Sarge47

Ted: 1st, I don't eat the bait, I use it to catch fish! 2nd, yes, I've seen it done right in front of my eyes. But we didn't use the sawing method. My cousin, now deceased, needed worms for fishing, & didn't want to dig any up. So he drove a long, metal rod into the ground with a heavy hammer; it may have even been a maul, it was quite a few years back. Then he beat on the side of the rod with the hammer/maul really hard until the worms came to the surface. The theory is that the vibrations on the ground fool the worms into believing it's raining & up they come!

You can also use one of those old "crank" telephones and run an electrical charge through two rods driven into the ground about 5 feet apart. The current brings them up fast!

(The movie: "Godzilla" shows this being done with a car battery.)

Come to think of it, I remember someone telling me you could just pound on the ground with a shovle. Done the electric thiny just plugin into the house before. That sure works!

I was mainly wondreing if anybody done the sawing on the stake thing with any good results.

**shooter_250** · 10-03-2010, 02:54 AM

yep...tap the stake

**kyratshooter** · 10-03-2010, 03:43 AM

We used to use a manure fork. Just stick it in the ground and move it back and forth a bit. The worms pop onto the surface and you just pick them up.

What you may not realize is they are using these methods in a "worm bed", saturated with bait. We fed/watered our worms regularily and kept straw on the surface to protect them. There were so many worms in there you could stomp the ground beside the bed and they would pop out.

**Rick** · 10-03-2010, 04:28 AM

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirt...-worm-grunter/

**Winnie** · 10-03-2010, 05:01 AM

It even has a World Champion!

http://www.wormcharming.com/

**your_comforting_company** · 10-03-2010, 10:36 AM

Ted, I use a cinder-block for my "saw". and a wooden stake about 2-3 feet in the ground. use a very slow sawing motion so that you get the most longest grunt from each pass.
When I lived out in the woods with my parents and we didn't have a bait bed, this is how I would get bait to go fishing at the creek. The creek was 2 miles away, but the bait store was 6, so it just made sense to get my own. An old timer told me about this method and based on what he told me, I tried it.
I got some of the biggest nightcrawlers I've ever seen.

Look for places where the worms will be, damp soil, rich in nutrients, and normally lots of tree roots (which would make digging darn near impossible) If you can drive your stake near a root, it will help disperse the vibrations. Do you know what "worm piles" look like? if you can find those, you can get bait this way. I have a little area in the yard now dedicated to worms, so it's been a while since I've done this, but I did it a lot as a teen with lots of success.
It's really helpful to have somebody with you to pick up the worms while you grunt.. they can come up as much as 10-12 feet away from you... normally within about 6 feet.
Next time I go out to momandads (that's a redneck word for all you yankees

), I'll try to remember to do this again and take some pictures for you.

*edit* The weight of the cinderblock helps so you don't have to push down so hard, and you want to tilt it toward whichever side you are sliding toward. It's kind of a "rocking" motion. We call this method "grunting".

**Ted** · 10-03-2010, 11:00 AM

Thanks for the responses!

@ YCC, Yeah I tried it in the yard where I always found them with the flashlight. Lots of piles! And about 6 feet from a tree. This was during a pretty good dry spell, so maybe they were extra deep or I didn't work the thing long enough.

Thanks agian for everyones input. At least I know now it really works! I'll have to try it a few different ways.

**klickitat** · 10-03-2010, 11:08 AM

I seen a show on tv when I was a kid where they were putting the open end of a 55 gal barrel on the ground and then hit it with an ax handle to bring them up. Never tried it, but seeings how this seemed topical, I thought I would throw it in there.

**Ted** · 10-03-2010, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by klickitat

I seen a show on tv when I was a kid where they were putting the open end of a 55 gal barrel on the ground and then hit it with an ax handle to bring them up. Never tried it, but seeings how this seemed topical, I thought I would through it in there.

Thanks for throwing!