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Show Lone, lowly wor rnav foe foes'l bait 0 By Bill Karr Huck Finn caught fish on worms. Kids with cane poles and safety pins caught fish on worms. Everyone who has ever caught a fish has caught fish on worms. Worms are still one of the best baits available, and if you can survive the guffaws of the self-styled elitists, you can outfish them 2 to 1. "Going dredging, eh Bill?" Alamo Dave from Park City, Utah, has a nice way of putting things. Typical of the elitist fly fisherman, that. So what if I have an ultra light spinning rod and a can of worms in hand? I ended up the day with a 3M pound brown out of tiny little Kimball Creek while the fly fishermen were still cross-country ; skiing! So it's too cold for a good hatch.. .the water's cloudy.. .my fly rod's in the shop.. .so I like fishing with worms! There, I've said it. Ever since I was 3 years old. and caught my first Brookie in a little High Sierra trout stream I have enjoyed fishing with worms. I have caught trout, bluegill, sunfish, barred perch, smallmouth, largemouth and black. I bass, catfish, crapPje walleyes, pickerel, mackin?'1' steelhead on worms. Worms ; found from below sea level to t?" '' mountains, and if there ever natural bait that any fish will f 95 it's the worm. Due to the rash of fly fishi, fishing enthusiasts is f embarrassing to admit you're fisherman anymore, but after h given this careful considers! what??? Sure, worms are t slimy, crawly nasty little rascal k when put on a hook and prsT properly those exact charactw become the worms best attributes1? feed mainly by sight and sound I , squirmy, crawly anything in hungry fish will result in hook-up My favorite method of fishinE or nightcrawlers (the weight oft 'crawler gives you a longer cast) ' free drifting method. This is the!? natural presentation for any spec fish in any body of water, be it mT' or still. m; (Continued on page 5) Worm 999 . (Continued from page 4) ,. To accomplish a successful free drift you should begin with a full reel of the lightest line possible. Use three feet of the lightest leader possible, based on jlr the clarity of the water and the species j,; of fish you are after. A size 8 or 10 worm hook is good for worms, a size 4 of 6 for r nightcrawlers, and no weight of any ' size. My preferred method of baiting a f1: hook with a worm is to enter the hook ; directly at the point of the head, e'; threading the worm until the head is 'K beyond the hook eye and just barely on a'r the leader itself. Bring the curved, barb ish- portion of the hook just outside the body pr of the worm. When hooked in this ' manner the worm gives a very lifelike ge: action as it is reeled in, or if a current catches the line and pulls the worm. This method can be used in streams where the worm can be cast upstream and drifted into eddies, pools or riffles or it can be used in lakes by casting from shore and slowly retrieving it or drifting it over the side of a boat. An especially effective variation of i the free drifting method, adding many I yards of casting ability, is to simply thread a clear plastic cast-a-bubble partially full of water on your line above the leader. Put one BB split shot on the line itself below the bobber, three to four feet of light leader on your hook. With this setup in a lake or larger river, you can cover every depth level in the body of water from the surface to the bottom. The weight of the worm and sp-( sp-( ' lit shot pull the line through the bobber, I very slowly taking the worm down through every possible productive J fishing area to the bottom. As it is 3 reeled in the worm covers the same vertical areas, as well as the entire horizontal area for the length of the cast. To avoid tangling the worm in the line around the bubble when you case, click your bail over and stop the flow of line just before the bubble hits the B water. This will lay the leader and worm out behind the bobber when the line stops. id I once knew of a nightcrawler, not personally mind you, but through a reliable friend, that managed to entice W two mackinaw weighing 3 and 6' tu ' pounds into the boat. It was the old pop-e pop-e , gear and worm trick, using three feet of leader and a nightcrawler behind the pop-gear. The benefits of pop-gear are ii the attraction quality of the rotating blades and the depth that can be attained with them. The primary drawback is the tremendous amount of resistance they give to both the hsh and the angler. The fish is allowed a certain .amount of slack from the hook to the pop-gear and the angler cannot maintain tension against the fish because of the resistance of the pop-gear. pop-gear. Many fish can be lost because of this, and much of the fight is taken out of the fish you do catch because of this resistance. At times a small fish can be brought in without even knowing it was on the line. If pop-gear is-used, purchase the very small ones, as this will minimize resistance and give you the best fight possible using pop-gear. The "throb" produced by the pop-gear should be approximately one per second, any faster and the worm produces an unnatural movement. If the fish are short-striking, and not taking the hook when they hit the bait, you may find it helpful to add a small piece of leader material and a second hook close to the tail of the worm. For the bottom fisherman, use a sliding egg sinker threaded on the line, a small split shot to keep it from sliding down to the hook and 2'i to 3 feet of light leader with a size 6 or 8 hook. If the worm or nightcrawler alone is not producing, try putting a miniature marshmallow on the hook with the worm. The marshmallow suspends the worm just off the bottom, keeping it out of the moss and bottom-growth and putting the bait in plain sight of bottom hugging fish. The white marshmallow also attracts fish from a longer distance than the worm alone. Combinations of these methods are the way to go. Use the cast-a-bubble or pop-gear method to locate the area and depth of the fish, then switch to the free drift method if the fish are near the surface or the sliding sinker method if near the bottom. Use a regular bobber if the fish are found in a more medium depth. Once the area and method are found, stick with it. Under certain circumstances and in certain areas, flies are the thing to use. Plugs, spinners and bait all have their place in the great sport of fishing. If bait is what you feel like using or what the situation calls for, regardless as to whether you're after warm water sunfish or cold water trout, you will find the oft-neglected worm to be your ticket to good fishing. |