When I was a kid growing up in NB, we used to take a flashlight to the local golf course around midnight and slowly walk across the fairways nightcrawlin'. Direct light and vibration would cause the nightcrawlers to quickly retreat back underground. As kids we'd dive for them and put them into a chokehold pulling with just enough tension to get them out of the hole and not snap them. Once we got good at it, we'd get em before they knew what happened. We'd have a bucket of half slime, half wriggling nightcrawler after about half an hour.
We'd put those nightcrawlers to work over the next day or two down at the town bridge where the Meduxnekeg emptied into the Saint John catching small mouth bass, perch, and pickeral like no tomorrow.
Funny, back then, we'd throw perch into the woods to reduce the junk fish...had never heard of anyone eating them until I moved to AB...turns out they're pretty good.
We'd also have good luck with brown trout further up into the headwaters. Throw a big gob of nightcrawlers on your hook and let it sit on bottom.
|