Worms

Of the common earth worm there are some 1700 sub species found on this planet.

In england for example there are more sub species than you might image. The common lobworm I think is the largest. However there is another large worm that has a pink head that doesn't come out on wet mild nights and is one of the best chub baits of the lot.

I have never reckoned much to the brandling. They tend to stink and exude a yellow liquid which I am sure
puts fish off.

What's your favourite worm?

By the way I hate bringing it up but the largest worms in the world are found near Port Elizabeth in South Africa. They can be as long as 20 feet!!

Ron
There are 24 types of earthworm found in the UK, 10 of which are described as common. Lobs (Lumbricus terrestris) are the largest and deepest earth dwelling worms. Brandlings are the shallowest, living in top few centimetres of soil. Brandlings are the most productive recyclers of all worms, munching their way through 2Kgs (per 1000 worms) of organic matter a week.
For composting they are without doubt the best to keep in the wormery.

Sorry Ron I don’t share you view about them regarding fishing use, I use them predominantly for my worm fishing for bream, tench, perch, chub and I’ve caught good fish on them. The bream in the picture on this post was caught on them.

As I’ve pointed out they live in the top few centimetres of soil and are the worms most likely to find there way into watercouses, due to getting swept in during heavy rainfall.
They’re also very tolerant of being submerged in water for long periods indeed. I have had them at times, out all night when bream fishing, reeled them in the morning and they’re still wriggling. They are tough worms and will stand up to many long cast and retrieve actions.

is that including worms in sand ?

I've always done well with brandlings for tench, Bream , Perch and Crucians. The smell of the yellow liquid always fills me with confidence.

My favourite worm, in fact my favourite bait is Lobworm

No need to be sorry Phil. We all have our little preferences. It's probably because of the stink of them that I have never given brandlings a fair trial; and I've been fishing a long time.

Thanks for the input on this thread Phil. You obviously know a heck of a lot more about worms than me.

Years ago, I remember being able to get a rather nice redworm from under old sacking on my Grandad's farm in Notts. It had a most gorgeous reddish bronze colour and was never more than about 4 inches long. I caught lots of perch and roach on this worm.

I wonder what species it was.

And what do you think to Dendrabenas? They look like large brandlings to me without the stink.

Brandlings are a good bait for sea trout too,especially in coloured water.

Ron It helps when one of your best mates is one of the foremost authorities on worms and worm composting in the UK.

What Mr. Pilkington doesn’t know about worms isn’t worth knowing ……. Should massage his ego that when he next visits this site.

Dendras so he tells me are quite hard to keep in a wormery, as they need a very specific food source and I can’t for the life of me remember what is. Without it dendras start to walk, well crawl away actually.

As a fishing worm they’re good, being bigger than Brandlings, the problem I’ve found is that many tackle shops who sell them are actually selling (probably unwittingly) large brandlings.
Brandlings if kept in poor used up compost will lose their yellow bands and look very similar to medium sized dendras. As I have a plentiful supply of large brandlings from my composter, I no longer buy any worms at all these days.
If I want lobs my local park has a ready supply of them, there for the taking and an hours work.

If however, anybody wants to buy dendras, I’d suggest that they buy direct from a reputable worm farmer.

Here’s an interesting one for you Ron, when G.P. was doing some trials into consumption of compost by worm species, he sourced 5 species form quite a few worm farmers. Two thirds of them misidentified brandlings for dendra. Oops!
Not a good thing to do with someone like George, a Scouser you see!

Lobs BTW can be kept in deep-lidded containers for quite some time, provided you place a 5-6 in. turf sod across the base. Lobs feed on leaf/grass litter so a few brown leaves sprinkled over the top will keep them happy. Do not put green grass cuttings in, it generates heat and worms do not like heat. Nor for that matter, do they like cold, an even temperature of about 50F suit them fine. So keep them in the shed, garage or similar place. It’s perhaps advisable to change the turf every month to six weeks to keep them tiptop.

dont know anything about worms but "dendrobenas" are a good bait especially for carp.

so there aint no worms in sand ie beaches ?

Lobworms have definately been very good for me during the past few seasons.

Phil,I know it's a bit long winded but try logging on to www.enchytraen.de/dendrobaena-veneta.html (sorry it's so long) I think if I read it correctly dendro's prefer paper sludge. Personaly I prefer red worms

good article here:

http://www.wormdigest.org/dendros.html

I think my attitute towards brandlings may have been caused by something **** Walker wrote about them being useless.

Pete Stone used to like them.

Oh there are some very large worms in Sand Cakey.

Read all about them in the Sci Fi Story: "Dune."

I only ask because of THIS bully boy

I have had mixed results on various worm baits. The best results in a match situation have been on Brandlings and/or the little red worms we used to get imported from the UK to Norway.

I have only used Lobworms recently for Bream fishing and for some Chub fishing with good results.

My results with Dendrobenas have been rather poor, and I am not sure as to the reason for this. I have used them on stillwaters and on Rivers in the Wiltshire/Hampshire area and only had one or two really good sessions with them, and one of those was on a day when I hoped to get some Tench from a local stillwater.
On arrival there were lots of Carp showing so I changed my tactics and went for the Carp. Caught 12 between 7 and 13 pounds fishing just 14 inches deep under a large float whilst all the carp-boys were balnking on the bolt rigs etc.

Phil, if you know a really good source for worms in the UK could you please e-mail me with the contact information?

oops!
for "balnking" please read . . . blanking

Peter, if its lobworms you're after I can personally recommend Baitline( Gordon Vowles) of Shenstone ,Staffs. Telephone 01543 481534. I have used him several times after finding his number in Trout & Salmon.Postal delivery to your door.

Ian, thanks, I will give this a try.