Take Your Children Night Crawler Hunting

Night crawlers are large worms that live in the ground. They are usually used while fishing for fish such as catfish, blue gill, crappie, carp, perch or other fresh water fish. Since night crawlers are “live bait”, they should be refrigerated or kept cool in dirt or grass in a closed ventilated container.

Night crawler hunting with children is a great adventure. First of all it’s a very tedious task for adults. Secondly it takes a lot of patience. My suggestion when taking a child night crawler hunting, you should take them one at a time. Once a child gets the hang of this task, they will figure the rest of it out for themselves.

You should prepare your yard early in the evening. Right before the sunsets or as early as 6 pm, water the entire yard where you intend to hunt night crawlers. You might want to take a nap or watch a late movie, because they tend to start crawling at various times but usually if you wait till around midnight you should do pretty well. Make sure you have a couple of good working flash lights that generate plenty of light. You have to have lots of patience to hunt night crawlers. Start on the edge of the lawn using your flashlight to guide you. You should take small steps moving very slowly through the grass. Carefully use the light to catch the reflection of their slimy bodies, but using caution not to shine the light directly upon them. When catching them, you have to sneak up on them, carefully clenching them but not too tightly as to bruise them. When you catch one, put it in the container and close the lid, because they will crawl out and escape! Sometimes you are very successful, sometimes not but it’s a lot of fun in the process and the kids love messing with the slimy critters!

This outdoor activity probably sounds just as bad as making mud pies with your kids, but they thoroughly enjoy catching the worms for the next day’s fishing trip. Good luck and let me know about your successes or failures but most of all about the laughs you had while out with your kids experiencing this adventure together as a family!