Black lugworm differ from common “blow” lugworm in that they are generally bigger and have much tougher skin. In the South Devon area they are difficult to find to dig except on a few beaches. Due to this it is also very rare to find them stocked, live, in the local tackle shops. They are, however, readily available frozen. As they have tougher skin than common lugworm they can be frozen (and re-frozen). The freezing process involves gutting the worm and wrapping them individually in newspaper. Usually tackle shops will sell these frozen worms in ‘wraps’ of ten worms and these provide a useful source of bait when supplies of fresh worms are short. When defrosted the worm is tough, rubbery and sticky.
As with fresh worms these can be used whole by sliding the hook through the middle of the worm to create a decent sized bait for targeting species such as cod and bass.
The advantage of using frozen worms is they can also be cut into smaller sections to target smaller species such as flatfish and whiting. Threading the hook in and out of the worm or using fine bait elastic is the best way to keep the worm from sliding down and obscuring the hook point.
