![]() ![]() However, the purpose of the harness is to attract the walleye to find the worm. I suppose you could catch a walleye on anything if you fished long enough with a crawler attached. To help understand the reason for blade choices I’ve built a chart:Ī variety of harness colors will work. Variations abound including those with single hooks Smile, Dakota, or Willow blades and even what appears to be a wedding band in the build. The entire harness will run on a single three to four foot strand of line with a swivel or loop at the end opposite the hooks. Above the hooks, you will find 3 to 8 beads, and in front of that a size 3 Colorado or Indiana blade. How can you know which ones work best?įor those wanting instant gratification, the “norm” consists of two small hooks, size 2, 4, or 6, snelled on 10 to 20 pound test line. The sheer number intimidates anglers seeking to try a new method. Cabelas and Bass Pro each carry more than one brand and several varieties for each brand. Literally hundreds of commercial harness makers exist and a Ebay search for worm harness or crawler harness will prove it. I caught my first lunker bass on this rig. The early Crème worm was a rubber worm on a primitive worm harness. Several chapters of the classic book, Lunkers Love Nightcrawlers, cover the long term care and feeding of nightcrawlers.Ī worm harness is nothing more than one or more hooks combined with one or more devices to attract fish. In the event you wish to buy crawlers in bulk, they are available from several mail order sources, including Cabelas. When the ice melts, merely add another piece or two.Īn alternative I recently learned was to bathe a day’s worth of crawlers at once, then place them in the now empty Styrofoam containers with ice. In addition, you will be in and out of your cooler less often. The ice water plumps them up and washes the dirt off so your boat floor stays cleaner. Once I am in the boat and ready to fish, I put some ice and lake water in a flat bottom plastic bowl and add four or five crawlers. The ice will not freeze them in their containers and will keep them cool and lively. On the day I intend to use the crawlers, I pack the boxes in an ice chest with ice. If you are not the cook, label the boxes “worms” to avoid screams and other domestic difficulties. Crawlers will last several weeks if left alone in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. Next important tip: As soon as you get home, place the worm boxes in the refrigerator and keep them there until the fishing trip. Temperature or stock rotation disasters do happen. However, I always check the contents before I leave the store. I buy at several locations and find the overall quality quite good. Typically, the containers are Styrofoam or cardboard and are filled with potting soil or mulch. Grocery stores, convenience stores, and even Walmarts sell them. In the last several years nightcrawlers have become a major farmed and/or harvested crop. They aerate the soil, they help break down leaves and other dead matter to soil, and they are so valuable to growing plants that people buy them to put in their gardens.īrown trout guides below Bull Shoals dam say they use red worms because they are “more natural looking in the water.” The real reason is stocker rainbows that can’t and won’t leave the nightcrawlers alone. Nightcrawlers are one of nature’s perfect animals. ![]() ![]() Chuck holds the Holiday Island Marina walleye record at 14.5 pounds, and he is the one who taught me about his harnesses for brush fishing crawlers. In particular, I want to thank Chuck Etheredge of Holiday Island, Arkansas. What I will share comes from fellow walleye fishermen who have showed me a number of tricks. Instead, this article is intended as a primer for fishing worm harnesses in Tablerock and the other White River impoundments. Why many people avoid using worms and insist on artificial baits would make an excellent topic for a psycho-social doctoral thesis. The Catch Even Norman Rockwell knew worms catch the fish. In 1919, Norman Rockwell painted two covers for successive issues of a magazine called The Country Gentleman. ![]()
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