Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Night Crawlers

Quick question, would it be bad for me to feed lots of night crawlers to my penned up SMB? The night crawlers are easy pickings in my neighborhood right now, I picked up 5 dozen just this morning in 10 minutes. I have been BG trainnig my SMB but the water temps over last week have dropped into the mid 50's where seining small BG to toss in the pen is getting rather chilly. Would there be any isues with me tossing in 5-6 doz. night crawlers in every night while I wait for the water temps to get a little warmer?

No, as long as the fish eat them, you're fine. But don't get them trained on nightcrawlers and then fish with a plastic worm. It just wouldn't be fair!

Only if these were feed trained fish and you wanted them to stay on the pellets which apparently isn't the case. I had a largemouth once that was feed trained. I started feeding him nitecrawlers and that is all he wanted. He refused the pellets and would come right up to the bank and demand his nitecrawler. Trouble was he was long and thin because I didn't always have a nitecrawler for him. I think he actually starved himself waiting for that easy handout.

Cecil, the SMB wont touch pellets. In fact, they are very very spooky with as clear as the water is right now. Everytime I walk out on the dock, the SMB go hide in the weeds on the far side of the pen and when I throw worms out they wait for them to about hit the bottom before they suck one in, or sometimes just wait for me to leave before they start eating them. They are always on the far side of the pen hiding when I toss the worms in. I had one last night that just sat there 20 ft away, just behind the weed edge, facing me, and staring at me while I sat there motionless after I was done tossing worms, he wouldn't budge from his spot until after I left. My SMB definatley have a wild streak. Since last Friday I have collected close to 25 dozen night crawlers, I have been throwing 5 dozen in there a night. Yesterday the air temps here got to 77 degrees so I did some siening and added 12 dozen 1" plus BG to their pen. I was just curious if one could over do it with the NC's.

Keep feeding them what ever they will eat. But it would be good to mix it up BG , FH , worms , small crawfish , tadpoles anything they would eat if not pinned up. Here is a list from FishBase.

http://www.fishbase.org/TrophicEco/FoodI...pecies=dolomieu

Shorty, they're also pretty common here at this time of year. You can get about a dozen for $4.00.

Please excuse Dave's warped sense of humor, he's delerious because he's getting more rain ! Ponds reaching the spillway Dave ?

Nope Eastland. 4.6 inches raised it about a foot. Awfully muddy from exposed banks.

This post brought to mind something I've been thinking about for a while: Is it easy to raise nightcrawlers? I was thinking of a sandbox-type structure out at my property. Anyone know if this is how you do it? I'm only out there about every 10 days, so if it requires much attention, it may not work for me. Any ideas? Thanks...

Hey Fishman Dan,

Here's a thread with some interesting information.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001177;p=1#000000

Dan, ain't no way in our part of the country. It gets too hot. We can raise redworms but in the country, every varmit around would be digging there. All worms take moisture and we're pretty short on that.

Now, a redworm box at home for some beauty contest winners to maintain might be an interesting project.

Good call, Dave. I may fill a recycling bin and keep it on the side of the house. Thanks...
P.S. Looks like more rain headed your way. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

This is trivia. About 2-3 years ago, there was an article in Science News about a study of the effect of night crawlers on forest litter in Minnesota. According to the article, there were NO earthworms of any species native to the area covered by the Wisconsin glacier. The ecological role filled by earthworms was filled by ants and other insects.

Norm, thanks for the trivia. I like that kind of stuff.

I took a sechi disk reading last night, the disk disappeared at roughly 9ft. That would help explain why my SMB are so spooky right now. As a side note, a few of the SMB regurgitated some of the small BG I put in the pen the night before. Question, can you feed your fish too much food? Or do I have a few SMB whos competitive nature has made them way too
greedy?

Have you given any thought to putting up a cardboard cut out (of yourself) to get the SMB use to someone standing at the waters edge. ( so they know who's their daddy )

...more "essence"....BAM!
...make it of Emeril....BAM..BAM!