Figured I'd write a thread on how I keep earthworms and nightcrawlers sharing my methods and perhaps others could share theirs as well and provide a good resource for others not familar with how to keep bait. All my bait earthworms which I dig and nightcrawlers which I pick at night during raining periods saves me a ton of cash rather than buying them and they tend to hold up better than store bought bait for me.
First off Ill cover bedding materials, I only use three things for my worm/crawler bedding. When using water for the newspaper the final rinse I use bottled water to rinse out any water chlorinators and I soak the coconut coir in a jug of bottled water.
Black and white shredded newspaper- shred into small strips (household paper shredder works well for this) then proceed to soak in water till wet and squeeze out, repeat this process until the water being squeezed out is almost clear. Once completely squeezed out good proceed to fluff out the paper and its good to go.
Coconut Coir- this stuff can be bought at some hardware stores/garden centers or online. A good sized compressed brick is fairly cheap and gives a good amount of end product. For this I let soak overnight in a 5 gal bucket then squeeze out real good and its good to go.
And lastly soil- I usually gather a few 5 gal buckets of good black dirt where I dig my earthworms. I then proceed to screen this dirt using as a screen a reptile enclosure cover for a 10g fish tank. I find the size of the holes on this better than using a standard window screen.
I like to use a mixture of these materials to keep my bait in.
For my crawlers I keep these in the fridge in plastic containers such as coffee cans with some holes punched in the lid. Earthworms can tolerate being warmer and dont actually do as well being kept cold but they should be kept cool and out of heat, so these I keep in 5gal buckets or plastic bins in a closet in my home. The earthworms will breed in their bedding if you wanted to raise them although I dont bother with this I just replenish by digging more. Nightcrawlers are not productive to be raised in captivity and most store bought crawlers are worms that were also collected in the wild. The bedding should be mixed around every week to keep it loose and aerated, also a spray bottle with some bottled water can be used to remoisten the soil. Although with using the coconut coir you dont have to moisten very often as the stuff holds water very well, as a side note it also has anti mold type properties as well. I change out about half of my bedding mixture every month to keep it fresh, the old bedding can be used in your garden if you have one ( I give it to my mother in law).
For feeding the worms I use only three things to keep down on mess or ruining the bedding, you can also use other things but I find my worms do fine with just these.
Coffee/Tea grounds- left over after use just allow to dry and then add to the bedding.
Newspaper- its already in the bedding and the worms will eat it.
Crushed egg shells- just crush up to a powder and sprinkle on the bedding.
Its also important to go through your worms about a day after collecting. The dying/injured nightcrawlers/worms will usually remain on top of your container and should be removed to prevent disease spread. Its also a good idea to go through your worms once in a while to pick out any dead ones, more so for earthworms if there not in the fridge the crawlers you have some lee way due to refridgertion preventing dead ones spoiling right away.
When your using bait fishing try to remove some bait and keep it in a seperate container that you utilize for when your fishing. Keep your bait cold to ensure best results. An easy way to do this is to freeze some 3/4 full old water/soda bottles and just put one of those in your container while fishing. Try to avoid leaving half crawlers in your bucket if you break some in half while fishing as I do ( I just leave them in a small worm container I bring with me fishing so I dont accidently leave some in my bait bucket) After fishing you can just store the remaining bait back in the fridge in its container, don't add these worms back to your 'stock' in the fridge as its never a good idea rather add more 'stock' to your fishing container as needed to keep your stored worms fresh. Thats about all I can recall for now as to keeping worms/crawlers hopefully someone can use the info and happy fishing.
