minnow traps? gathering worms?

[Fisher_Girl_Kitti]

i have a couple things full of wild mealworms i collected. where can i find those catalpa in texas?

[WillCFish]

There are some commercial liquids you mix in water that will work. Also if you have some fresh walnuts you can break the husk open and lay them on the ground and run a hose over them. The worms come straight out of the ground. Dad used to wash off the husked walnuts in the back yard and we noticed this.

ok so i have a very small hand built minnow trap and i want to know how many people have had success with home built traps to gather minnows. im not sure if mine will work ut i can build one that is bigger if push comes to shove.

also it rained some yesterday and i went out to gather some worms and had no luck. is there something i can use to draw the worms from the ground faster? like a solution of some sort that i can pour onto the area to draw out the worms?

[Fisher_Girl_Kitti]

im limited on money but is there something i can make at home from scratched like a sweet water or something? would super salty water work too?

[CrappiePappy]

im limited on money but is there something i can make at home from scratched like a sweet water or something? would super salty water work too?

I don't think I'd use "super salty water" ... as that would probably kill the grass. It would also damage the worms, if they weren't rinsed off quickly.

Here's my best guess/cheapest way to force worms out of the ground :
A few (4-5) tsp of Dawn dish detergent in 5gals of water ... poured on an already damp lawn (just before dark)... then go out about a half hour after dark, with a weak flashlight or one with a red lens and pick them up (you'll likely have to pull them out of their holes, most of the time, so be gentle when pulling on them). Have an empty container to collect the worms in, and rinse them off before putting them in a container you're going to keep them in. Have a container with moss & leaves, barely damp ... or some damp dirt & newspaper shreds ... to keep the worms in. Keep them cool until time to use them.

If you don't use all of them on one trip, and you don't think you'll be going again for more than a week or so ... put the remaining worms back into the ground you found them in. They'll be there next time you go looking for them, and they'll be creating new generations in the meantime !!

... cp

[Fisher_Girl_Kitti]

i dont have anything that would hold 5 gallons of water and it rarely rains here now. the heat keeps the ground solid as a rock.

[CrappiePappy]

i dont have anything that would hold 5 gallons of water and it rarely rains here now. the heat keeps the ground solid as a rock.

Make it a 1gal water container (old milk jug will work) .... lay a newspaper down on the ground, 2-3 pages thick ... soak the area the newspaper covers (slowly so it stays & soaks into that area) ... a shady spot might be a good idea, since the Sun would just dry it up ... leave it overnight & check it the following morning.

The worms are there, but they're probably deep under the dry dirt. You may be fighting a losing battle going after earthworms/nightcrawlers. Any compost piles, fields of cattle patties, or potato gardens around close ?? Compost piles (on the ground) hold moisture & the organics thrown in them will draw worms. Cow patties work the same way. Potato plants draw Potato Bugs, and the little red larvae are good Bluegill bait. Plants heavily treated with pesticides will not produce enough larvae to fool with.

One trick you "could" use, is to use a real small artificial .... catch a Bluegill/Sunfish that's too small to fool with cleaning ... scale it & filet it as best you can, then cut the meat/skin into sections just big enough to cover a #4 hook ... fish farther away from the bank & deeper, and you may get into some Sunfish big enough to clean & eat. If you keep catching small ones ... back out farther & go a little deeper.

... cp

[Ranger R61]

My dad used to take the dishwater after washing the dishes and pour it in the yard. Seemed to bring up the nightcrawlers.

[SeaRay]

I may be missing somthing here but I thought nightcrawlers only lived in the colder climates. I've never seen one in the ground in SC and I would not have expected them to live in Texas either.

We have had our best luck in low lying swampy or damp areas with a leaf cover on the ground. We just use a stick to scrape the leaves back and we can usually find a good many doing this. These are not as good as the redworns you buy in the bait store as they are somewhat brittle and for some reason the fish don't hit them as readily as redworms, but they will bite them
SeaRay

[yankee doodler]

As far as the minner trap discussion goes, I made one out of 1/8" hardware mesh that is sold at Lowes/Menards/etc. 24" long x 10" w/ funnel opening at one end. I bait it w/ cheap dry dog food and throw it in my church pond. Usually a day or two, and I have more minners than I can use per fishing trip, so I release most.

[Fisher_Girl_Kitti]

the minnow trap i built is out of that screen door mesh stuff. i made a small one first but realized it was too small and i used too much glue on it so i made it longer and use fishing line that i was never going to use again to have a secure stitching. i had to use a couple pieces of floral wire though to keep the area around the funnel open enough so escapes are harder to make. the funnel is attached to the trap itself accept for a section that is big enough to get my arm into it so i can reach down to the bottom of the trap easily.

also the creek thats right by my apartment seems to be a good place to start for minnow rapping and even worm finding since its always gooy down there. theres tadpoles down there to and i caught a nearly full formed frog that still had part of a tail there too!

i haventy been able to get down there since its so freaking hot and now that i have a dreaded summer cold.....i wont be goign down there anytime soon.