Check this out! Here is why GSF are so fun to catch. Fishing for bass I had this bad boy nail my 4 inch jerkbait. That's right 4 inch! This guy here was right at 8.5 inches going on 12 I think with the way he hit this lure! Ya gotta love that kin dof attitude no matter how you look at it if you like to fish!

excellent post rc!

yer lure reminds me of my horn worms. you familiar w/ horn worms? they get big (up to 5-6-inches) and green and love tomato plants. in the summer i collect them off our plants and throw them in the pond.....the gsf inhale them whole!

Hey Dave no I have never heard of horn worms... Sound kind of like a night crawler to me except night crawlers aren't really green. I bet they love them! Keep feeding them 5 or 6 inch worms and you are bound to have some big GSF for sure! I bought some smaller worms one day and did not get one bite! I couldn't believe it??? I guess my fish have not seen worms in so long they don't know if they should eat it or not. One day this May I had about 12 or 13 daddy longlegs in the boat with me and I threw them all over into the water and when I got about 12 feet away the water just went nuts with GSF eating them right off the top. If was awesome!

Tomato horn worms are one of the devil's curses on the southeast.
When I see what they have done to my tomato plants, I dont think to let them live long enough to become fish food.

Wow looks more like a catapeller instead of a worm! Cool! They look real juicy I bet they love em!

Burger,

Scatter some buckwheat seeds throughout your tomato patch. It's really easy to grow, and attracts predatory wasps like nothing else. The wasps are timy, but they sure put a hurt on the caterpillers, even pretty big ones.

I didn't believe it either, and scoffed loudly......another "I told you so" moment for my wife.

Thanks for the tip. Yolkie!

RC51, are you sure you're from Arkansas? They are all worms in the south. Ever heard of a catalpa worm?

RC, yep they are Caterpillars. They get about 3 to 4 inches long and as big around as my little finger.

burger,

Hey no actually I am not from Arkansas I was born and rasied in Wisconsin. Sorry I guess I don't know everyting down here yet I wonder if I have any of those on my land? I will look better this spring.

Planting some really nice tomato plants is a good way to collect them.

DD
Try this for your Tomato Hornworm control.

Natural Control: Birds, parasitic wasps, and braconid wasps attack the worms. Trichogramma wasps attack the eggs. Skunks.

Organic Control: Hand-pick caterpillars. Spray Bacillus thuringiensis products as a last resort only. Release lady beetles and lacewings to attack eggs.

From the Howard Garrett web site the wasps and lady betteles have worked as a control for me.

It is fund to experience the strike of a good sized GSF. I've caught them on all types of lures - 6 inch lizard soft lures, 3 inch flipping tubes. GSF have serious attitude.

Uh Oh! Here we go! Next thing you know, there will be GSA flyers falling from the sky.

You got that right.

Last summer I found a tomato plant with a bunch of missing leaves, and found a huge tomato worm looking very guilty. I grabbed him by the neck and said through clenched teeth: "Spit it out!". That's hard to do, his neck was very short.

Hey, tomato plants are a little poisonous; only certain insect larva can eat them. Don't know if they're poisonous enough to hurt fish.

GSF are fun to catch, I go down to the river below a dam & catch them all day long on a mepps spinner, Thay hit like a bass!

bobad, i've observed no harm to the gsf from tomato fed horn worms, however, we also have datura plants every summer that the horn worms love (for those that dont know datura was made famous by carlos castenada, who outlined how the yaqui indians used it for "out of body" experiences). you think sober gsf are fun to catch? catch them while they are stoned on datura...holy cow....

Now that was funny Dave! Gotta love it!

A stoned GSF. That's scary.

Tomato horn worms and GSF in the same thread, O the irony. Little eatin machines. If you are the only person around growing maters they can be controlled. Since I try to have an organic garden to avoid feeding my family pesticides, or mater powder, I hand pick them. The vector control guys did a night spray over for skeeters when I was out smokin my cigar. So I guess organic was out the window anyway.

Interesting critters, as they can really eat a lot of plant. But there are a lot of tell tale signs. First stub and stems where leaves used to be. Then little segmented green poops. The bigger they get, the bigger the worm. Green juice drops everywhere. They seem to only eat maters if they are in their way. If you look long enough you will spot them, just follow the trail of destruction and look for the freshest poops. Fresh ones are wet and bright green. When I was a kid I'd catch the biggest ones and feed them to my desert tortoise, yum, yum. A real treat for it. Would bypass all of its veggies just to much them. My chickens inhaled them, not as much entertainment. Except if two fought over one and ripped it apart.

Best way to get them gone is dig around your old plants and compost. When you find the large brown cocoon looking thing, that is what the moth comes from. Either destroy it or leave it for kids to watch it hatch. Then destroy it. Big moths, maybe 4" long, bigger than a GSF. Last year I had zero on 8 different varieties. But they can be a real serious crop damage problem. You can get an overabundance of them, dare I say...just like GSF. How fun.

I think remember reading somewhere that they and the catalpa worm, renouned as catfish and bluegill bait, are both from species of Sphinx moths.