Worms planted the seed that grew the fishing obsession in just about all of us.
The first thing a youthful angler learns is that early season trout will take worms with abandon. And it is this way with trout too, before spring insect hatches cause them to feed differently.
The early trout fishing is best done with worms before competing forage develops. I’m not sure exactly why worms work so well but I learned as a child, probably around ten years old, to use worms in the early season.
Streams & Ponds
Anglers can sinker worm baits on pond bottoms and just wait for a trout to pick up the worms. If you see forked sticks upright along the shores there is a good chance someone has been worming there. Another choice is to have baits up off the bottom with a float (Of course, they could be bait fishing with something else that works, too.) Sharpies who anticipated their needs in the offseason, often have worms put away in a warm cellar for use during ice fishing. As long as the worms don’t freeze they will even work under the ice.
The most productive and enjoyable worm fishing is best done in small streams or rivers that flow and babble. What one does is allow the worm to drift naturally with the current. It’s best to avoid drag by letting the baits tumble at the stream’s speed. Don’t ever worry about a trout’s ability to catch the free flowing worms. Trout can smell worms because it is a bait they have had before. High water in spring usually erodes river banks enough to cause land bound worms to wash into the ‘cricks’, as they say up north. These live worms are nothing new to feeding trout which love them. Just don’t let the worms die and stink. Trout are not stupid and will reject stinky dead baits because they apparently have had enough of the real thing to know the difference. Even hatchery trout with little experience love them.
Where Trout Lurk
Trout thrive in areas with suitable overhead cover. Bridges and road tunnels which provide both shade and protection from predation from above, tend to draw from an increase in current. Anglers who know their streams tend to have a working knowledge of undercut banks which cause a change in flow direction. You have to keep moving in order to avoid fishing too long in one undercut. Some rivers, especially the ones that do a lot of downhill runs, have more change in direction with these resultant undercuts. If you have a spot with a lot of foam, often under a waterfall, drop your worm in the foam; it’s a dead cinch there is a trout hiding in the overhead cover provided by that foam.
Don’t look for one but when I used to fish a brook with my brother, Norman, there was an old milk can with the bottom rotted out where we would both be certain to find a trout taking advantage of the overhead cover that it provided. If you caught one there, the next day a new trout would have moved in. Competition with Norm for first dibs on the milk can became so fierce that we had to resort to taking turns. Mama used to say that brothers should not fight.
Rigging
When fishing worms in streams I like using a fly rod with a floating line and mono leader. Tie the small long shank hook, size 10 or 12, directly to the leader; no junky snap swivels. It probably doesn’t matter but don’t bait up with a glob; use a single worm. When drifting the bait watch for evidence that your fly line has been stopped which can be an indication that the worm is being held. Set! If you’ve waited too long the trout might spit the worm out. You can also drift worms under a float. In current, if the float stops drifting your worms have either caught on the bottom or been taken by a trout.
Current is a trout magnet. Lakes with an inflow stream will have trout gathering in the current for the often cooler oxygen rich water coming in. Such currents usually provide feeding opportunities as well. The same thing happens in outflows of lakes but I think water coming in has a slight edge over that which runs out. Do both.
Nightcrawlers Work
| OPENING SALVO |
| In New England the trout regulations vary from state to state. Massachusetts has no opening day while Rhode Island prohibits fishing of any kind from March 1 to the second Saturday in April, in any body of water where trout are stocked. Connecticut trout fishing is catch and release only from March 1 until the second Saturday in April. Make sure you read up on the regs before you go, no matter what state you fish in. |
While they are not as trout popular as garden worms, “night walkers” are much easier to catch, a flashlight and coffee can is far easier on the back than the dig job one has to do for garden worms and trout will still sell their sisters for them. For crawlers, you have to wait until night after watering your lawn during daylight. Lawns that have been treated for grubs will not have crawlers. Once it’s dark gatherers crawl on their hands and knees with a flashlight in their mouth watching ahead for the baits which often are found in pairs acting like animals. You can’t be too noisy and shake the ground or the buggers will spook back down the hole; nor can you be too rough or the crawler will break; it’s a fine art.
When I was a kid I used to sell them to a local bait and tackle shop for a dollar a quart, no dirt, which was a lot of money in those days. Even today, bait shops still offer crawlers as their top selling trout bait. Ray Miclette of Pete’s Bait in Woonsocket, Rhode Island once told me he sells out of crawlers early trout season every year. There is something to it.
Worms Are Limited
With so many trout waters limited to artificial lure fishing, many trout hotspots do not permit fishing with bait which includes worms. For good reason, officials don’t want people using a bait that trout will gulp down and swallow, being terminally wounded in the process. Worm fishing is not for fishers who throw trout back. Nevertheless, there is charm in fishing like a kid, catching like a kid, and even remembering that excitement you felt catching trout as a kid.
