Worm Wrangling

Photo by Jennifer Miller 02/15/16

Worm Wrangling

My kid is the perfect combination of princess and redneck. She dresses up fancy, yet knows how to get down and dirty. She and T were planning a fishing excursion the next day. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well and had to forego it. T decided he wanted to try to catch the trout with some sort of fancy worm set up. Don't ask me what that is other than, "some fancy worm set up." This is as 'fancy' as my husband probably gets. Surprisingly, he was too cheap to support the local bait shop and decided to go hunting in the backyard. He wasn't having luck digging worms up, so I suggested that he wait until nighttime.

"The worms come to the surface. Just take a flashlight to find them and be quick. They slide back into their little worm caves fast," I said.

"I never heard of that. You're full of it."

"This was an old elementary school experiment. Try it."

"Whatever."

"Do you want your fancy worm set up or not?" My point was reluctantly taken.

"Ooooo! Daddy! I wanna go hunt worms, too!" G said, jumping up and down with excitement. She was wearing her new fancy red dress with shimmering embellishments. She slipped her rain boots on and declared herself fit for worm duty.

T and G grabbed the flashlights and headed out onto the abyss the lawn. I dozed off for a few minutes and when I woke, it occurred to me they had been outside for quite some time. I was enjoying the quiet solitude and so decided not to check on them. I was fairly certain there were no man-eating worms in our neighborhood.

The silence was soon broken by the opening of the garage door. Into the kitchen came the clunk! clunk! of G's rain boots, and huffing and puffing after hard laborious work. Her cheeks were flushed form the cold night air. "Mommy! MOMMY! We got some! Loooooooook!"

Sure enough, she had nearly filled up a cottage cheese-sized container with creepy crawlies. I noticed many large night crawlers and quickly turned to my grinning husband with questioning, "So my technique worked? Or did you run to the 24 hour stop-n-shop to fulfill the bounty?"

His grin vanished. "Very funny," he said. After some thought-provoking glares from me he added mumbling, "Fine. You were right." (Music to every wife's ears! Ha!)

He mentioned they received some strange looks from a few neighbors, but I imagine that's nothing new. For cryin' out loud we fillet fish in our front yard. We're practically a roadside attraction!

G wanted to show me how she had professionally mastered the sport of worm wrangling in a single night and insisted I come outside for a demonstration. T is equally excited as this is the easiest way he has collected worms. I got up and followed as her red glittery dress swayed, leading the way out back.

Using the flashlight, T locates the worm and G dives in to snatch it before it sucks back into the earth. Since she is a kid, she is naturally closer to the ground, meaning she can get to the worm faster, and, therefore, has a better success rate than T. Much to my delight, she managed to pluck a final monster night crawler which, in turn, fetched her a nice 3 lb-er the next day. Monster worms fetch monster fish.

Oh here, I have video. Notice the red shimmering dress I was talking about while performing the dirty job--that's my redneck princess! And the fancy worm set up worked on the fish, too. I guess I have a redneck prince as well! It's nice when it all comes together.

Photo by Jennifer Miller

Photo by Jennifer Miller

Copyrighted 2016 by Jennifer E. Miller