Kieser: Nightcrawlers and kids

Finding bait is great fun for a kid – especially if their yard is blessed with nightcrawlers.

Nightcrawlers are so named because they come out at night and lay around doing whatever nightcrawlers do. They are sensitive to light and vibration, making them a challenge to catch. The right bait shop will pay you to bring in a night’s catch, a huge plus for two 12-year-old boys and my buddy’s pesky younger sister who turned out to be a beautiful woman – who knew?

Dallas Elder, my childhood buddy, was a nightcrawler aficionado. He claimed to know everything about this most elusive mystery of the night. He even wore a special pair of jeans on his wormy encounters that were adorned with layers of mud and grass stains displayed like medals on a soldier’s tunic.

I refer to, of course, the days before Spray and Wash, when mothers gave up and set aside certain clothes that were beyond washing or even patching. Yep, I envied Dallas for owning these wondrous jeans that did not get him in trouble after a hard night of corralling crawlers across wet ground. But this was not surprising because Dallas was well versed in the ways of worms – good stuff for a young man to know.

There is an art to catching nightcrawlers, or at least this is how Dallas explained it:

“Now crawl across the yard and shine your light high,” Dallas told his sister, Cathy, and I while sitting at their kitchen table one cloudy night and both paying attention to every word like we never did at school. “Crawl slowly and stop often to shine the flashlight close to your position. Make sure the beam is high so you don’t scare the nightcrawlers into their holes. They will go 200 feet deep if you scare them, so don’t do it. I don’t want people in China catching our worms. Half of them will be in the hole for a quick getaway, so get a firm grip because they can disappear in a hurry. Then when you are in reach, grab them really fast and hang on while not smashing their heads or other parts. Remember, we can’t sell dead worms!”

I walked away from that table vibrating with Dallas’ words of wisdom and feeling amped like a soldier who just received a foolproof plan of attack. I had even talked my grandfather into letting me use his new chrome Eveready flashlight, and he threw in new batteries while figuring the house would be quiet so he could watch his favorite television show, “Gunsmoke,” in peace while I was at the neighbor’s yard hunting worms.

We started toward the door and a miracle took place in front of our eyes – it started raining. Now even the biggest worm-catching fool knows that rain brings up nightcrawlers from holes that quickly fill with water. More importantly, they come up and stay after the rain is over, enjoying cool temperatures that follow. Dallas, who always had an answer to nightcrawler questions, surmised it was part of their wormy religion – but we figured he just made that up.

Either way, the rain stopped after about an hour later and our task was set. My eyes tried to focus on the dark, wet yard that held the motherlode of nightcrawlers and financial prosperity. After all, 1,000 crawlers would net us a clean, crisp $20 bill – a lot of money in 1965.

Soon the three of us were slithering across the ground like Army soldiers in the movies. I paused to take out my flashlight and shine it a few feet ahead to be rewarded by the most beautiful sight since red apples hanging on a low limb.

The ground was covered with nightcrawlers and they were sometimes paired and twisted up doing whatever it is nightcrawlers do on a rainy night. I slipped forward, quickly grabbed at one of the worms and came up empty-handed and then another and then another. Profits were slipping down to China because I couldn’t catch the darn fast worms. Dallas heard what was happening and decided to hold a quick conference.

“Now look,” Dallas said with a firm voice like a military commander talking to his troops and the flashlight pointed up from his chin to give his face a sinister look on that dark night. “Don’t swipe at the worm, reach your hand slowly forward under the beam and then grab quickly at the last moment. Be sneaky and fast, that’s how I do it.”

He emphasized his point by shining a light in his coffee can. The bottom was already covered with confused nightcrawlers probably wondering what had happened – if nightcrawlers can wonder anything at all. Cathy and I looked on in amazement at this master of the art of nightcrawler wrangling.

I tried his technique and was soon tugging nightcrawlers from their holes. The key is to grab one and hold on. They will stretch and break if you apply too much pressure. Yet, just enough pressure will make the worm give up and release.

Game on.

The nightcrawlers were there and soon we would all be rich and, sure enough, we made $20 after a couple of successful nights. Dallas and I spent the rest of that summer catching nightcrawlers, throwing hay bales and mowing yards to make our fortune.

I wonder if somewhere kids are still catching and selling nightcrawlers for bait shops? I’ll bet the nightcrawlers hope they are not, if they are able to hope for anything at all.