Selling Worms to Make Money

Selling Worms to Make Money

This article describes various ways to catch common earthworms as bait for fishing and how to sell them.

Image by -= Bruce Berrien =- via Flickr

Selling worms to make big money is a well established fact having produced several millionaires from this niche market.  The most money you can make is from selling worms as fishing bait.  There are several earthworms that are sold this way, but hands down the most popular is the Canadian night crawler found in southern Canada and along the Appalachians as far south as Alabama.  Other popular worms for fishing include the garden worm, the dug worm and the red wiggler.  They all make good fishing bait, and are classified as live bait sold wherever fishing is a popular pastime.


The most popular worm for bait is the night crawler that comes to the surface after dark to mate.  This is when they are caught.  To catch and store night crawlers for sale you will need the following equipment:


Flashlight equipped with a red filter; a headlamp works best because it leaves your hands free to catch worms.


A tin can or other containers to put the worms into as you catch them.  Professional worm catchers usually have two containers tied to their ankles to drop their catch into.


A large closely mowed lawn equipped with sprinklers to extend the season for catching night crawlers from spring through fall.  If you don’t have a lawn of your own other places where you can readily catch night crawlers are a cemetery, city park or golf course. 


Night crawlers will stay in place if kept in a refrigerator kept just above freezing in flats that are a foot square and 3 inches deep made from Styrofoam.  One large bait dealer stores night crawlers in a 12’ x 24’ walk-in commercial walk in cooler with the boxes of worms stored in piles that are up to 20 containers high with every other container rotated 90 degrees to supply air to the worms.  He sells these containers holding 250 night crawlers for prices ranging from $12 to $16 depending on the season. 


Night crawlers that are sold at retail are packed 12 to a 1/2 pound Styrofoam container with lid for $1.75 to @2.25 depending on the season.  The lower price prevails during the first part of fishing season.


You can catch your own supply of nightcrawlers, but if business becomes good you will not be able to keep up with the demand even though you can catch several hundred nightcrawlers per night.  In that case you can recruit some highschool kids to catch them for you paying them 25 to 35 cents per dozen.  There are also wholesale bait dealers you can turn too if the business warrants.


Garden worms are another popular worm used for fishing to catch them you will need a garden spade or long handled shovel and a container to put the worms in as you catch them.


Although these worms make a good fishing bait they are difficult to catch because it requires a lot of real hard work on your part.  For that reason they are not usually carried by bait dealers.

Liked it
Leave a Response
comments powered by Disqus