There is a beautiful beach just near where I live that has the biggest, fattest beach worms living in it’s sand. This particular beach has become known to me for its wonderful worms due to a lovely old fisherman who frequents my workplace and shares my passion for all things piscatorial. When it is time to go fishing I often go there to catch some with my brother, who is a master worm catcher. I have tried many times to catch them but cannot. There is certainly an element of skill involved that I am yet to possess.
This is the first part of catching a beach worm. You really need to go down to the beach at low tide. You will need a piece of old smelly bait or a fish frame tied to some string. You then need to drag the old bait or frame over the sand and through the water at the shore line. You can actually then see the worms heads as they pop up to check out what the food source is! They really only pop their heads up by about 5mm or so. When you locate a worm you need to put the fish frame in front of the worm’s hole and wait for it to emerge to grab the bait.
Now this is the part that I find tricky…. When the worm comes up and tries to feast on the bait you need to try and burrow your thumb and forefinger into the sand behind it’s head. The worm will arch up slightly and that’s when you grab him! Easier said than done, I say. The worms are very fast and super slippery! Some people actually use pliers to grab their beach worms but my brother thinks that if you have a bit of sand on your fingers to grip them and are very quick you can catch them ‘no worries.’ Once you have the worm by it’s head you need to pull it from the sand in one fast, steady movement.
This a very big beach worm, probably around 75cm long but it is the average sized beach worm for this particular beach.
See their feelers and mouth? Kinda freaky huh? They do have pearlescent kind of bodies too. Anyway we got around 5 worms which we thought was a good amount for a days fishing. You need to keep your beach worms in a bucket of damp sand and it is best practise to take only the amount of beach worms that you will actually use or need.
With our lovely fresh beach worms we headed off to catch some fish and we had a fantastic days fishing, catching two big sand flathead, one big Aussie Salmon, around fifteen big silver trevally and one lone wobbegong who was subsequently released.
