Freeze Dry Nightcrawlers worms bait for fishing
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Lynn Mills Bountiful High class of 58, Utah
Freeze Dried Night crawlers or worm guts on our faces.
Copyright 2005 by Lynn Mills all rights reserved
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A FishTackler® article.
   
  You might wonder why any one would want freeze dried night crawlers? Surprisingly there are some very good reasons to have and fish with freeze dried crawlers. Don't worry I am not trying to sell you freeze dried night crawlers. In fact I hesitated putting this page on the Internet because I don't want to have orders for them. I used to carry them and my brother and I even sold them to a string of sporting goods stores but they are too labor intensive and we got tired of being splattered with worm guts. By the time we get them made we have to sell them for $12.95 per dozen. Even with the high price though people who had used them came back to the stores wanting more. Why? Before discussing the advantages of freeze dried night crawlers lets peek at our feeble and disastrous attempt to mass produce freeze dried worms,  "Lumbricus Terrestris," to be specific.
Once the worms are freeze dried their skin becomes a sort of cross between leather and cardboard and they are impossible to put onto a hook so they must be strung on the hook in advance of freeze drying them. This is very time consuming as the slimy, wiggling, squiggling, slithering, worms must first be strung onto a worm threader, fighting all the way, and then slid off the threader onto the fish hook. As you can imagine it takes quite a while to thread a dozen night crawlers in this fashion. I would like to blame my brother, Galen, for the brilliant idea we had but I am not sure who's brain thought it up. Why don't  we shoot the worms onto the hook!
Freeze dried night crawler
Lumbricus Terrestris
Freeze dried

Freeze Dried Nightcrawlers
Freeze dried and ready to fish!
Before long we had the air compressor hooked up and had a worm inside a piece of tubing attached to the end of the air hose. Our worm canon was  ready. We took careful aim and fired! Splat! The crawler hit the hook at sub light speed and disintegrated in every direction. Galen looked at me and I looked at him. We both had worm guts all over our faces. For a moment we just stared at each other and them we began to laugh. We laughed and laughed till we were both practically rolling on the floor. That ill fated venture should have ended there but as luck would have it one of us suggested that what we needed was a guide to lay the hook into that would direct the flying worm onto the fish hook. Again I would like to blame Galen for this idea but  I just can't remember who dreamed it up. If you ever hear the term, "worm mist," it's roots come from an attempt to fire a worm 100 miles per hour at a guide and expect it to negotiate a 180 degree turn around the end of a fish hook and travel several inches in the opposite direction and up the fishing line attached to the fish hook. After many adjustments and failed attempts We abandoned the project and didn't take any more orders for freeze dried night crawlers. Just in case you are wondering why we didn't try vacuum, we did. It didn't work either! I have wished though that we had video taped the experience. All the worm mist bits and pieces would have made good fodder for America's Funniest Home Video.

    Here are some reasons why you may like freeze dried night crawlers.

     1. They will keep indefinitely in your tackle box. They are there ready to fish when you are. You don't have to go looking for a store or neighborhood kid who might be selling fresh night crawlers.

     2. They are super light and therefore the perfect bait to take on a back pack trip. Just think. You hike in to a remote lake and all the lures you try are ineffective so you reach for your secret weapon, Lumbricus Terrestris, night crawlers. The best bait known to man. You have it right at your finger tips and you didn't have to pack them in heavy wet soil or peat to keep them fresh. You can carry dozens of them and never know they are in your pack.

     3. The following account is anything but scientific. I offer it for you to decide how much validity to give it.
     My father loved our freeze dried worms and we kept him supplied. Here is the reason he liked them so well. Dad Some times took the local Boy Scout troop fishing. One day they were fishing from two boats on Strawberry reservoir in Northern Utah. No one was catching anything. After a time my father reached into his tackle box and pulled out some freeze dried crawlers we had given him and passed them around to the scouts in his boat. Soon his boat was catching fish while the other boat continued catching zip! This was not the only time we witnessed this. I can offer no explanation. I can only surmise that freezing probably breaks up the cells in the worms body thus releasing more flavor or scent into the water.


If you decide to try them here is what you do.

     1. Thread the worm onto a worm threader, a thin brass tube with a wooden handle. If you can't find one at WalMart I can supply you with one for a couple of bucks.
     2. Insert the point of the fish hook into the end of the worm threader and slide the worm off the threader onto the fish hook up the fishing line but leaving the end of the hook covered.
     3. Do this to as many worms as you feel you will need and put them onto wax paper and place them uncovered into the freezer for at least a week..
     4. Make sure that none fall into your wife's salad, but that is another story I might relate some day.
After a week to ten days the worms should be dry and ready to use. Each freezer might produce different results so test one night crawler before taking them all out. If the night crawler is completely dehydrated it will be feather light and when it warms to room temperature it should hold it's shape with no shrinking or wrinkling. When done I keep mine in a zip lock bag in my fishing tackle box. Also we rigged up a special device in a large stand up freezer that would dry the worms in three days. If any one wants me to send them a dozen I would consider a special order but not for anything less than $12.95 per dozen. If you should develop a worm gun capable of firing a worm at high speed around a 180 degree turn I would be interested to know and I would be the first to nominate you for a spot in the inventors hall of fame right next to the guy that comes up with perpetual motion. Good luck!

Send your questions comments or input to wwindmills@comcast.net







Dedicated to a most talented Lady, Joyce, Mills,Jensen my sister.
Joyce created her unique style cartoon artwork from my scribbled drawings and her talented hand drew many of these cartoons.
She is sorely missed!
Enjoy but do not copy or distribute in any way, fashion or form.
Other art work by Linda Herron, our daughter and myself, Lynn Mills


Some of my other pages
Science

Fishing


Quackery
Cartoons
By
Lynn Mills
Odds and Sods
And a little tongue in cheek

About Me
Black light UV LED
to convert a 3 or 4 cell flashlight
FishTackler®
Registered TM for sale! Click here for Info.
Cartoon 1
Strip Poker
Incredibly beautiful Drying Soap Bubbles
Make Wild Fires
Go Away!
Do Fish See Color? Cartoon 2
Left Overs
Energy Demand Verses Global Warming!
Where Does Lightning Come From? Fish the Strike Zone. Cartoon 3
Are You Asleep?
Bee Wars 200,000 Bees verses 3 men &
a dog! A true story.
Acid etching Limestone Fossils Triple spinner Bumble Bee  Cartoon 4
Panty Hose.
A long shot coincidence or Number please?
3D Through the Eyes of T Rex How to make Freeze Dried Night crawlers
or if messy isn't your thing...

Cartoon 5
Tantrums
How to Unlock Gridlock  This one earned
me the, "delightful nut" award
CJ
The Amazing World of Silica Gel
All you need is a laser pointer and silica gel.
Order Freeze Dried Night Crawlers. Cartoon 6
Bermuda Triangle
Panning for gold in western WA
What is Ultraviolet Light? Triple Blade Pop Style Fishing Spinners Cartoon 7
How Was It?
A Virgin Lost Gold Account
How to Make an Ultraviolet Light FishTackler® Home Page Cartoon 8
Rocking Egg
Grooming the Environment, a Green Thing 
Purify Your Drinking Water Triple Spinner Chartreuse Chaser Cartoon 9
Remove Your Clothes
Outdoor Survival Tips that may save your life!
Science Fair, Phone on a Wire How to Fish With GloWings™ Cartoon 10
God's Great Computer.
The amazing EZ garden
Subduction Zone Volcano Postulate. The Scarlet Minnow    Cartoon 11
Shear Delight
My memories of Bountiful, Utah
1947 - 2007
The Mystery Clock, how does it works?     Cartoon 12
Wet the Bed
Grow tomatoes indoors
Like SciFi? Read
Blue Dot .
    Cartoon 13
Basket Ball
Tips for your Halloween Haunted house
or spook alley
           
"Photo"
Is it real or has it been altered? Can you tell?
    Cartoon 14
Lovin the Rain
Spook Alley page 2         
"Photo"
How to erase unwanted objects
        The Camp Fire Ghost!               
How to make a barometer         Metal detecting stories and tips.
How to make a smoke ring cannon                  
The 3 States of Matter and the laws governing
Charge and heat seperation