I’m assuming if you have been fishing for a while, you have probably ‘drowned a worm’ at some point to try to catch a fish – we’ve almost all done it at one point. The first fish I remember catching was a common carp on a tiger worm in a warm muddy river many moons ago. Fish love worms – and worms provide very important roles within the many ecosystems they inhabit.
While there are over 20,000 species of worms, here we will concentrate on aquatic (freshwater) and earth worms because these are the ones that are most important to the fish we love and the places they live. Marine worms are important too of course – but we will talk about them another time.
Worms are such an easy bait. They can be found by digging in the garden, they’re soft and easy to put on a hook, and they are a wriggly, tasty, meaty meal for a fish. Luckily, they are also some of the easiest flies to tie, and if you are just starting in fly tying, a San Juan worm, or a squirmy worm are super easy to begin with and are almost guaranteed to get you a fish. What’s not to love?!
Worms help to keep soil (and stream beds) healthy. They are important nutrient recyclers for a start. This means they can break down organic matter so it can be used to help other things grow. For example, all of the leaves that fall off of trees in a forest slowly return to the earth where the important nutrients within the leaves can be taken up again by tree roots to help the trees grow and stay healthy. Lots of little critters help this to happen and worms are among the most important of these. You can even make your own worm farm at home and put all of your vegetable scraps in – the worms will turn all of those scraps in to nice smelly, nutrient rich soil which plants love to grow in.
Worms living in riverbeds help to oxygenate the sediment to help other creatures survive down there, they can survive in water with very low oxygen and help to remove pollutants from the river. And the best part is – fish love them!
Video credit: tactical fly fisher
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