Your next quarantine activity? The ancient art of Worm Charming
With a splash the hook vanished beneath the water! An excited 11-year-old waited on the shore clenching his fishing pole, muscles tensed and ready to reel in the fish behind the inevitable bite.
An eternity later, (1) there was not so much as a nibble. A defeated younger version of myself dragged his line in and examined the empty hook. Some fish stole the worm and avoided getting caught. If only I’d had an unlimited supply of worms…
Today with all the knowledge and wisdom of a 20-year-old, I will teach you how to coax worms right out of the soil, giving you that famed unlimited worm supply. Worm charming is a fun activity for all ages, can be done in almost any soil, and calls for very few materials.
How it works:
The idea is to create vibrations in the soil. A scientific paper on this topic found that the tremblings mimic moles (a voracious worm predator), causing them to flee to the surface. (2,3) People are very creative on how to make these vibrations and everyone has a different method.
Technique One: Worm Charming
The World Worm Charming Championships take place every year in a small England village. Most of the competitors use the traditional worm charming technique of driving a pitchfork into the ground. They then use a stick to bang on the pitchfork while wiggling the pitchfork slightly. I find this method has the highest success rate.
A pitchfork can also be substituted for any gardening equipment, stick or pole that can be stuck into the ground and banged on. Multiple sticks close to each other also seem to yield better results.
Technique Two: Worm Grunting or Fiddling
Professional Worm Grunters (4) use a wooden stake driven into the ground and rub a saw or iron file across the top of the stake to create vibrations.
At home this can be replicated easily with a stick driven into the ground and another stick slid across the first stick, as if you were playing a violin. I find this tends to be less effective than just banging, but it works nonetheless.
Technique Three: Modern Adaptations
Dancing, (5) pointing a tuba at the ground, dribbling a basketball and whacking the ground with a stick also create vibrations through soil. In theory, anything that causes trembling can draw out worms. These methods may not be as effective as the more traditional ones but can be loads of fun, especially for families with younger kids. It’s still very possible to lure worms to the surface using unique tactics, which allows for great creative thinking on how to make the vibrations.
Tips & Tricks
On a warm and wet day there will be more worms close to the surface and you will probably have better luck. You can also pour some water over the area you are charming, which may help.
Since the worms will not come entirely out of the soil, look carefully for small wiggly bits and pull them out slowly once you find them. The worms will be unharmed and can be safely released back in the soil,
You should see a worm within the first 5–10 minutes. If you don’t, try a new location. After a few attempts if there still are no worms you might have to try another day. Sometimes the worms just aren’t out.
Worm charming is the perfect quarantine activity. Without any human contact you can get outside and earn the lifelong clout of being a worm charmer. It’s also a great activity to help kids burn some energy and learn a bit about nature in the process.
Annotations
- To an excited 11-year-old an entire eternity can start and end within 10 minutes.
- Fun Facts about moles:
- They are one of the very few mammals that have venomous saliva. This is so they can paralyze earthworms then come back and eat them later.
- They also eat most of their entire body weight in worms every day!
3. Most professional worm charmers claim the vibrations mimic a rainstorm, but no studies have confirmed this.
4. This is a real job! A grunter in Florida reports he can make almost $3,000 a day selling worms he has coaxed out of the ground.
5. Seagulls are able to secure lunch by doing a cute little dance.
This story was originally written for a Michigan State University extension publication.
