What is the best way to hook a worm?
What is the best way to hook a good old nightcrawler? I live in Wisconsin and I fish the Wolf River all the time. Nightcrawlers seem to always get the best hits. Ive read to nose hook the worm instead of threading the worm, but i have no idea what that really means.
Depends on what you’re fishing for, hook size, how you’re rigged, etc.
For smaller fish, like panfish and small trout, the best way is to take a half or a third of a nightcrawler and bunch the worm on the hook or thread it on like a sock on a foot. If you leave dangling bits of worm, the smaller fish can pick it off without ever taking the hook. You’ll feel little nibbles and when you bring up your hook it will be bare as a bone. This “worm wad” method is effective for fishing trout in slack water with lots of vegetation and/or soft substrates. Rig up your worm with a sinker a few inches from the hook and sink it into the vegetation and/or mud (no bobber). Wait for a foraging fish to rut it out. A worm wad also works well with a bobber if you’re fishing for panfish at shallow or medium depths. Just move the bobber up until you find the depth where the fish are biting.
For bigger fish, like bass, you want that worm to be trailing out from the hook and waggling around. You might use a length of worm off a jig hook or you might rig it with a Carolina or Texas rig — the bass will hit the worm aggressively, sucking it all at once. Here the point is to get some lifelike movement and scent out into the water to attract feeding fish. You may occasionally lose your worm this way, maybe to smaller, “snacking” fish, or maybe to a bass that manages to get away with the worm without getting hooked, but that stretched out, dangling worm is necessary to attract bigger fish, so, it’s a sacrifice you sometimes have to make. You can also use rubber worms — you lose a lot fewer of them because they’re not actually edible.
Lazer Sharp widegap worm hooks (HD)