I just bought a house on lake Cherokee. The previous owner left the deep freeze and it's full of these worms. He swears by em for catfish. I've never heard of them, is this an east Texas thing? Any of y'all ever used them?

Also a Georgia thing. Good on crappie too.

We used them in small ponds and hammered the pan fish. Used to wrap garden spider webs around the worm once it was on the hook to make it last longer.

Amazing bait,I wish I could find more of them.

Growing up, that was the bait for most of my fishing. Granted, I thought for years it was catobby worms.

Awesome bait

yes, great bait!

Murder on pecan trees. I hope whoever imported them is burning in hell.

SWCBonfire- I thought pecan trees had issues with "bag worms"?

I don't think they are the same thing, but I could be wrong.

Yeah, different critters.

Is it 'catawba worms'? That's how I always said it. I grew up with on3 catawba tree in a Grove of pecans and sycamore trees. Catawba worms would ignore the pecans but would strip catawba trees to the sticks. Great bait, alive or frozen.

[This message has been edited by Ark03 (edited 4/26/2012 7:39p).]

Watched an old man bait a jug line with those once. We were fishing all day without a bite, and within 5 minutes he had a fish on.

Hey OP, are you new to East Texas? I live in longview and my partner at work has a house at Cherokee.

Good bait. I think they are a moth or butterfly in waiting. Pretty sure they burrow in the ground and emerge as an adult form after they eat the tree leaves.

Yeah I live here now neal, I moved to east Texas about a year and a half ago (originally from Georgetown). Ive been living in whitehouse, my office is in Longview though so I wanted to get closer.

Pecan trees have web worms not bag worms.

Yes, catalpa worms are like crack for catfish.

And I think my grandparents always called them something like catawbly worms.

My grandpa would drive once a year from N.East Texas to Mississippi to buy a years worth of worms. I didn't know for years as a kid there was any other bait. He made a home made stink bait, and used Catalpa worms. Nothing else. The freezer in the garage has Catalpa worms and the largest stash of frozen Blue Cat and Channel Cat filets I've ever seen. He's too old to handle his boat anymore, but my uncles are the same way.

Its hard to even find healthy catapala trees after last years drought.

On a private pond with catalpa worms and yo-yo traps was one of the craziest fishing experiences of my life.

Grew up picking them out of trees and spending many great days pulling fish out of Lake Palastine growing up. Seemed to catch just about anything that would bite and always did a lot better than regular night crawlers.

My grandpa in southern Arkansas would go out and pick them off the catalpa/catawba tree before we'd go fishing for bream, I remember that.

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SWCBonfire- I thought pecan trees had issues with "bag worms"?

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You're thinking of webworms. They aren't a problem in commercial orchards as they are attracted to the lights in town and easy to kill with pesticides that are applied to kill pecan nut casebearer.

Catalpa worms can strip a 100-year-old pecan tree right as the buds emerge. They started doing this about 7-10 years ago in our part of the country. They are also very hard to kill compared to other pests. Nukes all the beneficials in an area if you have to spray for them.

Dirty gray moths as ugly as the worms.

Try a tomato horn worm some time.

Turns out I have a catalpa tree on my place, and it survived the drought!

I remember picking those off of my grandparents trees when I was a kid. Great bait. When we going fishing BMach?! I can be there in 20 mins!

I still remember my grandfather boosting me up in the catalpa trees. I would go out on limbs and jump to shake them down to him and my dad. On good years it would sound like it was raining worms! Best bait I can remember. They would put them in coffee cans, layer them with corn meal and put them in the fridge. Critters would come back to life for up to 2 months! Great memories....

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Catalpa worms can strip a 100-year-old pecan tree right as the buds emerge.

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Have you had an entomologist take a look at your caterpillars? I agree those almost certainly are not catalpa worms eating your pecans. Catalpa worms (or as we say 'catawba worms' in East Texas) are called that because they only eat catalpa trees.

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Caterpillars feed on leaves only of catalpa trees.

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Source: http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg305.html

Whenever you want nealan, im gonna try em out tomorrow afternoon/evening

Ark, I've actually heard someone from A&M call them "catawba" worms, but from those photos it looks to actually be a walnut sphinx. The theory was that someone planted catalpa trees locally and the population went haywire with no catalpa trees to eat, but they definitely pupated into moths that looked like the walnut sphinx. No one had ever seen the numbers we were seeing... ever. Infestation quantities.

In any event, those *******s are hard to kill.

How do they taste?

Two lines currently soaking, we'll see how these legendary worms work

One perch, that's all that's taken the bait so far

BMach... you fishing for bluegill?

I've never used those worms for sunfish. They work great for catfish.

Wait until June and tie on some night-crawlers in shallow water. They will be spawning then.

I used to kill the bluegill in the shallows during June.

Great for gasper goo