My friend used to use earthworms for bait,i thought he was insane. But one time he returned from lyttleton wharf with near a bucket full of mullet,red cod and a couple flounder.
Also he caught a trout at the groynes with an earthworm but many peopleover there use earthworkms.

welcome Kally

Good Morning & welcome to the forum Kally,hope to hear more from you.

Barrell

sea worms are a massive bait if u can get them  I REMEMBER AT THE petone beach [wellington] when if u were real  quick u could dig them up  they were real ugly suckers  with bodies and heads like something out of a sci fi film  they  had retractable folds of skin over there heads that when peeled back revealed a real  nasty pair of pincers they seemed to range from about  100 to about 350 mm in length.  similiar worms can be found  under the little black mussels that u find on rocks but these tend to b much smaller  and not as desirable  to species that  predate on similar types of tucka . These  r  dinamite  on trevs  though u hav to cotton them on a bit or there lost after the 1 st hit  another worm i thought of trying  was the milk worm that u can dig up in clay soil these really grew  to quite  a size like about 600  to  800mm's  i never tried them but if size of worm is the prereq1uisit for success  these guys would have to b the primo

man, that post was made ages ago,
Uncle i did a seach on yabbies and read a little of the topic you started, How common are the yabbies in tauranga? How big do they grow? and are they good bait?

As as kid in Holland I used earthworms all the time for freshwater fishing. Perch, small pike and eels love earthworms.

Used to dig them up in the paddock on the way to my fishing spots. All you'd needed to do is take a small camp spade stick it in the ground and bang your fist against the handle for 5 minutes. The vibration in and around the blade in the soil would make the worms scurry towards the surface where you can just pick them up when they made their way out of the soil.

Not sure if the worms are as abundant here. You can always start a worm farm. And use the occasional handfull of worms for fishing.

Find a nice fat juicy earth worm, and inject it with any fish oil and whamo, red hot bait on the cheap. I dont know how they would survive in saltwater but they are top bannana for some freshwater species. Koi would love em.

One easy technique for extracting worms from the soil is to run an electric current in the ground. Electric fences are ideal. Just short the wire to earth and any worm in the vicinity will head for the surface. 

Wonder if a portable electric fence unit would work on your seaworms in the same manner Uncle. Connect the unit to a couple of probes pushed into the vicinity of a worm hole...... could be worth a try. 

I can remember doing that as well Penguin, though it was usually Mum who was giving us the third degree for skiving off with her dishwash liquid.  Then there was always the temptation to test out the new skating rink

Ive seen people spend ages trying to find worms. Under Cowpats as mentioned,  timber but an electrical current is almost instantaneous.

Most farms here in NZ have an electric fence system of some description and i'm sure the cocky (if you are on his property) wouldnt mind you utilising it for a short (pun intended) time. LOL just dont leave a permanent "short" though as that could be bad for your health.

I'm dead keen to hook on to some of the Koi we have here and what you have mentioned about worms is going to be hot on my list of things to  try.

And Uncle, if you ever want to try a portable unit on Seaworms i have one here you can use. I'd be interested to see if electricity has the same effect on them as Earthworms. Might even work on those small shrimps.

I live in Birkenhead and I sell worms I have red wriggler, omposting worms..... and I'm wondering if anyone wants them for bait I've seen some discussions on here available to chat, 0274826872