# Car Battery to collect night crawlers?



## raven174us (Mar 29, 2011)

I seen in the March issue of Field and Stream that you can take 2 copper rods, place them in the ground about 3 feet apart and hook to a car battery using jumper cables. This is suppose to bring up the worms. Is this something that is worth trying?


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## arkansasnative (Mar 29, 2011)

never heard of it before but you never know! i have a book that says you can drive a wooden stake into the ground and then tap it with a piece of wood and that will bring them to the surface at night...


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## Merlin (Mar 29, 2011)

I remember seeing people "worm growling" had to look around to find the info.
Here is a link
https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=09-P13-00011&segmentID=8


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## shamoo (Mar 29, 2011)

I use to go out at night with a bucket of soapy water and throw on the grass let it soak in, it seemed to bring those suckers up.


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## fender66 (Mar 29, 2011)

There was an episode featured on "Dirty Jobs" that had a couple doing this. I believe that is how they made their living. They collected quite a few worms rasping that file across the stake in the ground.


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## redbug (Mar 29, 2011)

it will work be sure to soak the ground before hand.
you can also use the rods with 120/volt drop light but you need to know what your doing for that one.


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## KMixson (Mar 29, 2011)

If you have some loose vegetation or some mulch, you can place that on ground where the night crawlers are and a couple of days later rake it away and collect them. If you keep it moist it works better.


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## Jim (Mar 29, 2011)

Car battery, wet ground, probes, sounds like a bad accident waiting to happen.


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## KMixson (Mar 29, 2011)

Jim said:


> Car battery, wet ground, probes, sounds like a bad accident waiting to happen.



Just before hooking up the battery you have yell "Hey, watch this".


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## S&amp;MFISH (Mar 29, 2011)

My Dad used to have a "worm rod",that he made. It consisted of a steel rod with a wooden handle,that had the "hot" lead of an extension cord soldered to it. You would plug it in,stick it in the ground and watch them come flying out of the ground. There were 2 rules to remember- 1.always wear shoes and 2.NEVER reach down to pick up a worm until the rod was out of the ground. Needless to say I broke both rules,each only one time. Man that thing would give you a jolt.


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## redbug (Mar 29, 2011)

S&MFISH said:


> My Dad used to have a "worm rod",that he made. It consisted of a steel rod with a wooden handle,that had the "hot" lead of an extension cord soldered to it. You would plug it in,stick it in the ground and watch them come flying out of the ground. There were 2 rules to remember- 1.always wear shoes and 2.NEVER reach down to pick up a worm until the rod was out of the ground. Needless to say I broke both rules,each only one time. Man that thing would give you a jolt.


Mine had an on off switch... both the battery and the worm rod/drop light work great the battery will only give you a small area to get your bait... 
this will also work if you have a stray cat that uses you garden as a litter box


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## fender66 (Mar 29, 2011)

> this will also work if you have a stray cat that uses you garden as a litter box



Now that's painting a funny picture!


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## raven174us (Mar 29, 2011)

S&MFISH said:


> My Dad used to have a "worm rod",that he made. It consisted of a steel rod with a wooden handle,that had the "hot" lead of an extension cord soldered to it. You would plug it in,stick it in the ground and watch them come flying out of the ground. There were 2 rules to remember- 1.always wear shoes and 2.NEVER reach down to pick up a worm until the rod was out of the ground. Needless to say I broke both rules,each only one time. Man that thing would give you a jolt.



That is some crazy stuff. I would end up shocking my self every time. #-o I live in an area with lots of clay and don't ever see night crawlers. But I have family that live on farm land so I thought I'd try some tricks to collect bait.


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## S&amp;MFISH (Mar 29, 2011)

raven174us said:


> S&MFISH said:
> 
> 
> > My Dad used to have a "worm rod",that he made. It consisted of a steel rod with a wooden handle,that had the "hot" lead of an extension cord soldered to it. You would plug it in,stick it in the ground and watch them come flying out of the ground. There were 2 rules to remember- 1.always wear shoes and 2.NEVER reach down to pick up a worm until the rod was out of the ground. Needless to say I broke both rules,each only one time. Man that thing would give you a jolt.
> ...




It might sound crazy,but it works like a charm. Give it a try and see for yourself. I lost track of the worm rod after Dad passed away. Then Mom sold their house in the city and I think she left it behind.


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## raven174us (Mar 29, 2011)

So the hot is hooked to the rod where does the other wire go? I may try the battery first. It would save me a ton of money collecting them myself.


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## S&amp;MFISH (Mar 29, 2011)

The other wire is dormant(not used). The ground is "the ground",if you know what I mean. And ,for Gods sake DON'T touch the rod.It would be like touching a bare wire. Use Insulated(from electricity) gloves if you have any reservations about the electricty. 

Dad's rod was about 3.5ft long. About 3/16-1/4in dia. He would plug it in,then shove it into the ground about 2ft,twisting it back and forth and pulling it out and shoving it back in repeatedly,until the worms appeared.If no worms came up it was time to move.Don't leave it in the ground for an extended period of time.If the worms are there you'll know it pretty quick.


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## raven174us (Mar 30, 2011)

I'll try that for sure. I'm somewhat comfortable with electricity. I just thought the initial idea was somewhat crazy. But if it's something that has been around for a while then it has to be worth doing.


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## WhiteMoose (Mar 30, 2011)

I remember doing this with some kind of extension cord/wire coat hanger contraption that my brother made. We always did it around the compost pile or the rabbit cages, and it really brought them up. 
The night crawlers that we got this way usually didn't live very long though, so we would have to throw out any that we didn't use that day.


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## lswoody (Mar 30, 2011)

KMixson said:


> Jim said:
> 
> 
> > Car battery, wet ground, probes, sounds like a bad accident waiting to happen.
> ...




LOL!!!!!! :LOL2: :LOL2: :LOL2: :LOL2: :LOL2:


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## mangelcc (Mar 30, 2011)

when i lived in ny we would go out after it rains at night and get as many worms as we wanted. the rain would push them up out the ground.


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## Oldgeek (Mar 30, 2011)

When I was a kid my dad brought home and old crank telephone he'd pick up cheap. He made that into a worm driver. My job was to crank the telephone after he had the rods and wires hooked up...*not *while he was doing it. I got a whoopen for that one. :lol:


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## baseball_guy_99 (Apr 5, 2011)

The worm rod works well. My uncle used to have one that plugged into an outlet and was attached to a 100' extension cord and thats how we always collected our bait. As stated above...wear shoes, don't touch the rod, and wait til the rod is out of the ground before you grab for the worms.


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## linehand (Apr 5, 2011)

This is the what my grandfather did for getting nightcrawlers. There is no danger grabbing probes to a 12v battery. There is enough current to make the worms uncomfortable but there are not enough volts to push through human skin. and yes I would think after a rain or wetting the ground would work better. You would have a small area to spread out the probes that would depend on the type of soil and moisture. I don't think sandy soil would work well. I would try a battery charger on like the 200 amp setting if possible. I wouldn't use A/C. 
This is my opinion only.


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## DocWatson (Apr 5, 2011)

A much better and safer way to get all the worms you want is to dig in a manure heap.

My grandfather used to keep rabbits for show and eating in rows of hutches out behind his house. Whenever we wanted to go fiahing, we just went out behind the rabbit hutches, turned over a few pitchforks full and had all the worms we could ever want.

Just don't lick your fingers while you're doin' it. [-X :wink:


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## Jasonalex84 (Apr 8, 2011)

We always used either the hand crank telephone or the electric fencer. The later seemed to work the best because it for a number of reasons:
1. The barn was surrounded by manure.
2. There was no set up time. It already had a grounding rod drove 15ft into the ground and another peice of rebar drove about 4ft into the ground located about 8-10 inches away from the fence. The only thing you had to do is talk your current best friend into pushing the rebar into the fence and holding it there for a bit. I got a ton of worms that way.......


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## bobberboy (Apr 8, 2011)

KMixson said:


> Jim said:
> 
> 
> > Car battery, wet ground, probes, sounds like a bad accident waiting to happen.
> ...



...or "Here, hold my beer".

I actually think this works. I vaguely remember reading about this a while ago. Also, for any of you who might have seen the American version of Godzilla that was made about 12 years ago, the opening scene is of a biologist doing this very thing on the grounds of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Russia. Of course, due to the radioactivity at the site, the night crawlers are the size of snakes.


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