Well I havent thought of this in years until today. I saw someone doing it under a big oak tree this morning and thought I'd share.
When I was a kid my Uncle would take us fishing every summer but we had to get bait first. This was his method of getting a hundred worms in a few minutes of work.
We'd get on his tractor and ride it out on his property to a group of trees. Under those trees we'd pour out two 5 gallon buckets of water. Then he'd make me and my brother get up on the tractor so we weren't standing on the ground and he'd hook 2 wires up to a spare battery on the tractor. One to the negative and one to the positive. At the other end of the wires were short wood handles he had formed out of a broom handle or something like that. Each handle had a metal rod coming out of it and the wire connected to the rod. He'd push the rods into the ground(mind you he had big rubber boots on) and space them 4 feet apart or so. Had to make sure to place them where the water was dumped on the ground.
Well you can guess the rest, after a couple of minutes there was a ton of big fat worms on the top and he pulled up the rods and we jumped down off the tractor to gather them up.
I don't really know if we bagged a hundred at a time but it seemed like a lot and we never ran out of bait.
That was years and years ago but this morning right down the road from my house I saw a guy using what looked like a 6 volt battery and some wires under a big oak tree. He had a coffee can sitting on his tailgate and I didn't stop but it made me think of my crazy uncle.
Also please note: I do NOT recommend you do this as I'm sure if you don't insulate yourself it could probably kill you.
My wifes grandfather uses a chainsaw with the chain removed. He sticks the chain holder part of the chainsaw into the ground and cranks it up and revs it at full speed. Doesnt take long for the worms to run out of the ground that way. I just can't see wasting a hundred dollar chainsaw on worm gathering, lol.
