Gathering Fishing Worms
There are several ways to stock up on fishing worms. If you have a flower or vegetable garden you may have worms aplenty, although the common earthworm isn't always the best choice for fishing, though it will do. You can raise worms, in which case red worms or night crawlers are excellent as fishing worms, you can purchase them at a sporting goods store or a bait shop, or you can go an a worm hunting (worming?) expedition.
Hit The Park - The latter can be kind of fun. A group of us used to head for one of the larger parks in Seattle after a rainy day (we had plenty of those), armed with a small bucket and flashlights whose lenses were covered with red cellophane. We’d search the park grounds for night crawlers, which came to the surface following a rainy period. The police never bothered us, even though we were a bunch of kids prowling through the park with flashlights, the reason being we had plenty of company, with kids and grownups alike looking for night crawlers. If you're fortunate enough to have a large lawn with a sprinkler system you may be able to do your worm hunting a few steps from your front door.
Start A Worm Farm - This is the best way to get fishing worms, especially if you live in an apartment and don't have a garden. If you do have some space outside, preferably a shady spot that's somewhat private, you can set up a worm breeding business. Worm breeding isn't particularly complicated. If you don't already have some worms handy, buy a carton of night crawlers or red worms, and you’re off to a good start. What makes red worms and night crawlers particularly good fishing worms is first, they are large, and second the tend to stay on the hook and not fall apart, as smaller worms will. A galvanized tub, like a 50 or 100 gallon water trough will be excellent, though you can use an old bathtub should one be handy. It's good to have something with a drain hole in the bottom to let excess water out. The worms won't try to escape. If the soil is to their liking, and you feed them, they'll be perfectly happy where they're at. A decent sized tub can yield several thousand worms in a year, which if you are any kind of a fisherman, should translate into at least a few hundred fish. There should be plenty of worms left over at the end of the season to keep your worm farm going.
Soil And Food - Worms will do best in a soil containing plenty of organic matter, like rotted leaves or straw. Avoid too much sand in the soil. Sand can irritate the worms. For worm feed, mix some cornmeal in with the top inch or two of soil, then cover everything with burlap. It's best to keep things in the shade, moistening the burlap from time to time if needed. Just don't let the soil become dry and hard. Add more cornmeal every other week, with a little water, and your worms should remain quite healthy and content. If you do it right, in half a year's time you might find your tub contains half soil and half worms, or at least plenty of worms.
If you have raccoons in the area, or any predator who is apt to dig, it would probably be a good idea to secure the top of your worm container with a screen or other protective material. Ants will kill worms too, though they won't dig for them, but a little ant dust around the base of the container may give your pets a little added protection. Good fishing!