Green worms

[TriStar Hunt]

Had to share this. I took my oldest fishing this weekend and while we were at the store he spots a container of different colored worms in the bait isle (green, purple, and red). I thought he was pulling my leg, but sure enough we ended up buying a container of “green” red worms. (I imagine they’re dyed in some way - maybe an engineer or worm farmer knows the secret method). Anyways - happy fishing!

 

[chuckchili]

How’d they work?

 

[seeth07]

We used to use them night time walleye fishing and I swear they glowed green and drastically out produced all other bait!

 

[TriStar Hunt]

How’d they work?

I can’t say I noticed a significant difference in performance. Though I swear we had three different turtles swim over and push around the line while using this bait. Hasn’t happened before and we’ve been fishing this spot every weekend this July and August.

 

[TriStar Hunt]

We used to use them night time walleye fishing and I swear they glowed green and drastically out produced all other bait!

I’m going to remember that one of these days when I head out for some nighttime fishing. Ill take any advantage...even if it means toting around a thing of worms that says “chartreuse” on the side. Thank you!

 

[Jc2020]

When I’ve used them they worked good and seemed like they were lively and really squirmed a lot on the hook

 

[2506gunslinger]

Lime flavored.

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

I am going to guess that they are fed fluorescein, which is a dye that emits greenish light. Fluorescein is a pretty cheap dye, so they can do this commercially. It is also the dye they use to turn the Chicago river green for St. Patricks day.

Here is a picture of fluorescein as a solid from the wikipedia.


Here is a picture of a "nutrient" from Willy Worms in the UK that is used to make worms turn green.


Here is what fluoroscein looks like under UV light when you add it to water, which is roughly what you are observing in the worms. This picture is also from wikipedia.

 

[TN2shot07]

Not sure what the dye is but I worked at a bait shop through college. We had a container of mix that you would put in with night crawlers and the next day they were bright green. I also never noticed any difference in using them, but it was an easy sell to people with kids! I’ve never seen pre packaged one like that before tho

 

[TriStar Hunt]

I am going to guess that they are fed fluorescein, which is a dye that emits greenish light. Fluorescein is a pretty cheap dye, so they can do this commercially. It is also the dye they use to turn the Chicago river green for St. Patricks day.

Here is a picture of fluorescein as a solid from the wikipedia.
View attachment 150072

Here is a picture of a "nutrient" from Willy Worms in the UK that is used to make worms turn green.
View attachment 150073

Here is what fluoroscein looks like under UV light when you add it to water, which is roughly what you are observing in the worms. This picture is also from wikipedia.
View attachment 150074

Fluorescein + Fishing is going to make this summer even more fun. Thank you for looking into this dye! I sense an awesome science project in my son’s future...

 

[nwihunter]

Some years back we bought the stuff it takes to make them green. Can’t remember what it was called but I think we ordered it out of a bass pro catalog. We bought a huge amount of crawlers to take up north on or yearly Canada trip and they were all bright green. Every time we would turn on the bilge pump it would pump out green water that looked like antifreeze from all the stuff we drop in the boat from out of the worm cooler.