[Carlhole]

Worm grunting, worm tickling, worm snoring, worm charming -- I don't care what you call it, I've never heard of it. But, apparently, it's quite popular in the United States.

My only concern -- How come you guys never invited me to go along?

Secrets of worm grunting support Darwin's instincts after 127 years

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Green Central', 'T')he secret of worm grunting, a mysterious technique used by fishermen to tempt worms to the surface, has been unearthed.

Worm grunting is popular in the United States - they even hold grunting festivals - and involves driving a wooden stake into the ground and rubbing it repeatedly with a length of steel.
To most people such behaviour might be regarded as, at best, eccentric but to fishermen it is a tried and tested means of providing enough bait to keep them going for hours.

A biologist intrigued by the practice has now established that the apparently suicidal behaviour of the worms in coming to the surface, where they are easy prey, is driven by a desperate desire to escape their deadliest of enemies - moles.

Moles are such voracious eaters of earthworms that the invertebrates would rather risk being caught by a bird or dried up by the sun than come within range of one.

Dr Ken Catania, of Vanderbilt University in the US, found that the vibrations created in the soil by rubbing steel on the stake mimicked those made by moles digging through the soil.
Fishermen had happily made use of the practice, known variously as worm grunting, tickling, snoring or charming depending on where it is done, but didn’t know why it worked.

His conclusion, reached after a series of experiments in the Apalachicola National Forest, in Florida, confirmed a remark made by Charles Darwin in his 1881 book The Formation of Vegetable Mould: “It has often been said that if the ground is beaten or otherwise made to tremble, worms believe that they are pursued by a mole and leave their burrows".

[eastbay]

A friend of mine showed me this video just last week!

I don't fish, but was still fascinated that worms would do anything to flee moles.

Grunting starts at 1:11 into the video...

[mercurygirl]

That is really amazing, will watch the vids. All I have to do is dig a little, maybe next time, I'll jump up and down.

OMG, remember those sand worms in Dune? That author was on to something.

[pup55]

Catching nightcrawlers a.k.a "annelids" is one of the great pleasures in life, almost as much fun as the actual fishing.

One can do this the hard way, of course, but much easier and faster to do it the dangerous way. Use an extension cord, cut off the female end, and split the wire lengthwise so that the positive and negative wires are separate. Strip off the end of each wire, and attach each end to a separate long metal rod. The metal rod for an old barbecue rotisserie is perfect for this, because it has a non-conductive wooden handle.

Then, drive the two metal rods into the ground about six feet apart. Ideally, the ground should be nice and wet. This is obviously where the danger part comes in. Plug the apparatus in, using one of those long orange extension cords.

The resultant pulse/vibration makes the little guys crazy. They come up even in broad daylight. You just grab them, and put them into your coffee can for the big fishing trip.

There is a fatality every couple of years in Iowa from people doing this. Reason: They run the hose out into the backyard for awhile before they do this, get the ground too wet, and they make the mistake of grabbing one of the electrodes while the setup is plugged in, causing a ground fault.


everything2

[Carlhole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'T')he resultant pulse/vibration makes the little guys crazy. They come up even in broad daylight. You just grab them, and put them into your coffee can for the big fishing trip.