Posted on 06/28/2009 6:48:26 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Worms usually come out when it rains, but this man knows another way to get them out of the ground.
Gary Revell is worm grunting - an unusual method that helps him catch worms.
He pounds a wooden stake, called a stob, into the ground and levels his 10-pound flat iron over the top.
Then he slowly, rhythmically, rubs the iron over the stob, back and forth.
He's making the ground vibrate, and after a short while, earthworms start to climb out of the soil.
Gary Revell, Worm Grunter: "There's an art to it, you know. I've tried to teach people how to do it, you know, and they just give up. They say they just don't understand how we can get these worms out of the ground with this stuff."
He and his colleagues are up before sunrise every day, working deep near the Apalachicola Forest by the Gulf of Mexico in north Florida, in Tate's Hell State Forest.
It's a well-earned name because its swarming with hungry mosquitoes, pestering gnats and poisonous snakes.
The vibrations bring out the worms, slithering everywhere on the forest floor.
My Dad, bless his soul, used a more direct method when I was young, back in pre-PETA times. He pounded a steel rod into the moist ground and hooked it to a car battery. The ‘crawlers shot out of the ground like surface-to-air missiles.
The 60hz vibrations make em surface rather quickly.
My pleasure!
Now that’s funny!
If you can, I want to see it on You Tube!
So do I!
Cheers back to you!
Prior to going fishing, we used to do this when we were kids, back in the ‘50s. Only there’s no need to pound a “stob” into the ground and all that. Just stick a shovel into the ground and shake it rapidly back and forth. Worms will start coming out of the ground immediately. And if you do it for five minutes or so, you’ll have a bucket load of them. ‘Course, it’s best to find a shady spot with moist soil.
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