WORMS - How To Present them

I have been trying to fish worm for a couple of weeks with no success. Could any1 give me a few tips on presenting them.
Either text book tips or personal/experience tips will be greatly appreciated.
Depth to fish them.
Best way to hook them.
Cutting them/ best bits to use.

Thanks alot chaps

Usually fished on the bottom, either on their own or tipped with a maggot, caster or corn.All of these will also hold a lively one on a barbless hook
Use whole, in a bunch, or pieces.
Hook them how you like,some say through the saddle, if they have one!

Chopped worm, that's small pieces are said to be a good attractor as loose feed.

Also a lot depends on what your fishing for, ie chub perch roach bream tench.

If its perch then feeding with maggotts and run a float fished worm down the outside , thats where the perch will be. Or a free lined lob worm on the bottom in a perchy area.

Roach you can fish on the bottom with a float rig , feed maggots or caster with little pieces of worm, small worm ,cut them around a quater of an inch for feed and try half or a whole worm hooked just below the head.

Chub normally take a whole lob ,laid in towards the bank near a snag or undercut.

You can feeder fish with a closed feeder just make the wholes a bit bigger and fill with little bits of worm and maggot. The maggots will push the worm out. Then a worm on the hook.

As fred says you can combine two feeds such as worm and maggot or corn, this will hold your worm on a barbless hook. if your just useing worm, then just cut a piece of float rubber and put it over the hook. this will stop your worm coming off.

Worm and caster or worm and corn a classic for tench. and bream , combined with some groundbait and chopped worms. and so it goe's. hope we have helped. tight lines

I hook them through the saddle and often hook a red maggot on so the worm doesn't wriggle off. A nice few chopped worms as loosefeed over the top, what fish could resist that?

great help so far. thanks

I very seldom use a whole worm and prefer to cut them in half. I always place the hook at the cut end because that will be the bit that is releasing the juices and smell. Like Fred I tend to use a maggot or a piece of corn to keep the worm on the hook.

One trick I've heard to stop the worm wriggling off a barbless hook is to fix a small piece of elastic band on after the worm.
I tend to avoid worm as I always seem to get one of those slimy little bootlace eels

red elastic bands that the GPO leave everywhere work even better when perching

Worms I think are one of the most underrated baits, there's not a single fish that won't eat them and apart from those after perch, they are hugely underused. It's always nice to have a tub of lobs handy, despite their price!

Much depends on what you are fishing for.

I hook the worm through the saddle, then form a loop in the worm and hook it again about three quarters of the way along its body.

I find that leaving the worm trailing and only hooking it through its head more often than not results in the worm being bitten off.


A very effective presentattion is to inject a little air into the worms tail and cause it to pop-up alluringly from the river/lake bed. If you only inject a little air the worm will fish nicely on the bottom, but create a sort of 'indian rope trick' efect, where the tail rises up provovatively from the bottom to boost the visual appeal to any passing fish.


Chopped worm and red maggot in a simple feeder with a worm hook-bait is my standard approach for big eels, and will work well for perch too.


If it's particularly perch you're targetting, a freelined worm twitched slowly towards you, or drawn back through the water like a lure, is one of the most under rated methods in the book.