There is a bait that catches nearly every freshwater fish that swims in our rivers, lakes and ponds. It isn’t made of plastic and mass-produced; rather it’s natural bait that fish find irresistible.
Best of all, you can find them growing in your neighborhood or buy some near your favorite fishing hole.
By now you’ve probably guessed that we’re talking about nightcrawlers, the lowly earthworm.
The Ice Age decimated this continent’s earthworms 11,000 years ago but replacements hitched a ride in the soil of plants brought here by the first settlers. This accidental transplant is a rare example of a non-native species that benefited our ecosystem.
Used properly, nightcrawlers catch fish under the most adverse conditions. Anglers fish them under a small round bobber or a slip bobber, with an egg sinker on the bottom or more sophisticated techniques like a nightcrawler harness rigged to a bottom-bouncer walleye rig.
Much of the satisfaction of fishing with nightcrawlers comes from catching and ‘conditioning’ them into lively, juicy delicacies that no fish can resist.
Best of all, it’s a great way to involve youngsters in the entire sport of fishing. They love to help catch, condition, and then fish with these lively ‘crawlers’. 
  They are called nightcrawlers for an obvious reason – they crawl on lawns at night. To catch them you need a small bucket, a dim flashlight and a few evening hours in well-manicured grassy areas.
However, you might consider the wisdom of notifying the local authorities before wandering around at night in a city park, golf course or cemetery with a flashlight and a bucket.
Crawlers aren’t known for their intellectual prowess, but they are quite skittish when it comes to sound and light; walk softly and don’t point the light directly at them. Some ‘crawler pickers’ go so far as to cover the flashlight lens with red cellophane.
These wiggly, slimy critters will never place high in a beauty contest so maybe it’s best they stay close to their home. In fact, they often hide more than halfway into their hole in the ground – pluck gently or you will end up with a half-worm. 
The conditioning process takes about 48 hours. Fill a clean cottage cheese or small foam container with dampened commercial worm bedding like Lindy’s Nitro or Magic’s Worm Bedding and a dozen crawlers. Punch a few tiny holes in the lid and store them in the refrigerator two days. The result is a container of conditioned crawlers that are so active and lively that no sensible fish can resist them.
Now that the crawlers are conditioned, you are ready to fish but you just can’t cast anywhere and expect to be successful. Even conditioned crawlers need to be used near likely fish habitat.
Bluegill, bream and sunfish prefer the friendly confines of docks, submerged brush piles, lily pads, and the outside edges of cattails. The simplest tackle consists of a cane pole or spincast rod and reel with a small round bobber.
Around docks or brush piles where the water is more than two feet deep, a slip bobber works best because it slides up and down the line between the hook and a stopper. When you reel it in, the bobber slides down to the hook and after you cast it out the bobber slides up to the stopper allowing the hook and crawler to sink.
Rigging a slip bobber is easy. First the stop goes on the line at the desired depth, next a bead and then the bobber. Tie a hook to the end of the line, add a split shot, thread a worm onto the hook and you’re ready to fish.
Slip bobber rigs are easier for youngsters to cast with their shorter rods. And, they are safer in the confines of a boat because there is less line, bobber and hook twirling around on the backcast.
Fishing for catfish is even easier. Find the deep-water end of a point, a submerged river channel, or an eddy in the river’s current and you have found catfish heaven.
Bullhead and channel catfish are bottom feeders so the tackle is simple. Tie a No. 1 hook to the end of the line and twist a 1/4- or 3/8-ounce rubber core sinker onto the line about 4-inches above the hook.
Thread a conditioned crawler onto the hook, cast the rig out, and let it settle to the bottom. Any catfish in the area will soon get around to doing taste tests.
Give the ‘best fish bait ever’ a try, you won’t be sorry. And remember this; crawlers don’t just catch panfish and catfish.
Nicholas Spizzirri from Plainfield, Ill., held the 12-pound-test Catch/Release World Record for Kentucky bass for several years.
He caught the fish from a dock using a nightcrawler and slip bobber rig.
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