Raising European Nightcrawlers as bait the cheap way .
This time of the year is great to start breeding worms as temperatures are now more suitable . For those who are into fishing , have you considered breeding worms for bait ? While a lot of the commercially sold bait worms are soil dwellers caught in the wild , some of them are actually compost worms such as the African or European Nightcrawlers . Both are great used as bait but the European Nightcrawlers or ENC have a firmer flesh and would stay longer on the hook and are also easier to breed . By breeding your own bait , you not only fish cheaper but you can also compost your kitchen scraps at the same time .
Breeding European Nightcrawlers from cocoons or from mature worms ?
Both ways are possible but here are some pros and cons for each .
Breeding from cocoons is cheaper to start with , however it will take you longer before you can harvest some live bait for your hobby . This especially true with ENC worms that have a much longer breeding cycle than other compost worms . In a previous experiment I only started noticing an notable increase in juvenile worms after about three months . But if time is not critical and you are willing to wait , then this method is my favourite because while Mature worms do not like drastic changes in their environment their offsprings will adapt very well even when hatched into a totally different type of environment their parents were used to .
Starting with a bunch of mature worms ( breeders ) will allow you to have a small reserve of bait at the start . Say you begin your worm breeding adventure early Spring and go and buy 100 worms , if all conditions where right you should in Summer time have about a thousand cocoons , a lot of of which would have hatched already but the worms are still small , you can now pick some of the initial breeders and go wet the line in the local river , then by Autumn the babies would have grown big enough for some more sessions .
The breeding container
Because this is not a commercial operation where you need to focus on optimising the yield , you don ' t need any special containers or techniques . All you need is some shallow plastic container , something between 4 and 7 inches would do fine . I started with small trays that were just 1 sqft but the more surface area the better , I ' m now using those affordable under bed plastic storage boxes that have wheels . Their depth is perfect and they have a decent size but being transparent they need to be placed indoors in darker room or be covered with a sheet of cardboard .
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