Nightcrawler Picking

Does anyone know of some good spots to pick crawlers in the Metro?

Call your local golf courses. I know the one up by our farm have no problem letting us do it.

Try at the cemetary

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Call your local golf courses. I know the one up by our farm have no problem letting us do it.

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I started doing this for the first time this spring. I called the local city course and was given permission. I met the guy who runs the course who said that I could come back at any time.

another surprising spot is baseball fields. for 24 hours after a solid rain the traps covering the mound and plate are usually loaded with big crawlers-and coaches love for anyone to get rid of them!

Ummm, how about your yard?

After a good rain, I’ve never seen anwhere that there’s grass that didn’t have crawlers on it.

You have to walk very slowly , they can feel the slightest vibration. Also, when you spot them, move the flashlight beam off to the side as they can feel the heat from the beam if you leave it focused right on them too long.

When I was a kid, we had a little side business selling crawlers. On the night after it rained, we could grab over 100 in the hour that we were allowed to stay up exta for the purpose.

Grouse

Not everyone’s yards are created equal. It not far fetched to say a yard could be void of crawlers since they are not native to Minnesota.

The benefit of going to a golf course is that there will most likely be more per square foot, thus making it quicker to reach your goal.

But true enough if you have a good population of crawlers in your yard. In that case there is no need to leave home.

I lived with a girl who would bring them to the surface for me during the day. He’d just dig a hole with the water pressure deep enough to get the hose down a half foot to a foot and let it run for 10 minutes. Those were easy pickings because they would come all the way out trying not to drown. When you hunt them at night they are usually only partially out, since they are just hoping to bump into another crawler to exchange sperm and eggs. That means many can squirm out of your grasp or you end up ripping them. Do not keep the ripped ones. They can end up killing off the healthy ones.

I guess I’m lucky and our yard is loaded with crawlers. If I don’t have any I just run the hose during the day and they come completely out of the ground. If I don’t have alot of time I run the hose a little over a bigger area and use my shocker, they come up like missles and get what I need sooner.

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Ummm, how about your yard?

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My yard has very few despite my “seeding” efforts!

Hint:: the saying down here is if you treat your yard for weeds the crawlers don’t like that. So if its commercialy treated, you might want to just spray the immediate weeds and do it yourself. I don’t know if its true or not but it makes sense.

I don’t think spraying or fertilizer affects them much. And in the case of fertilizer, I would not be surprised if it helped. Golf courses put all sorts of things down on their grass and they are thick with crawlers. I think the most important thing is a healthy lawn with loose, fertile soil. Although my yard is like a rock and I still have a decent amount of crawlers.

Your probably right Pug, by the time the nightcrawler story gets around the block it isn’t even close to the truth of what the bucket of crawlers weighed.

Mine soil is literally like a sand box, and I don’t think they like the sand.

I don’t know if I am right, I am talking from an armchair.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they liked the sand? You could get your bait right from the lake shore.