Shooting the worm

Press, 19 November 1977, Page 16

Shooting the worm

By

MIKE ROYKO,

of the “Chicago Daily News,” through

NZPA.

Tve seen some terrible sights in my time, aidermen eating, Bobby Douglass throwing, Richard Nixon looking sincere. So I am not easily shocked. But I was unprepared for something I saw while fishing recently with a friend named Bruno. We had just rowed out, and were getting started. We were in pursuit of the noble bullhead. Bruno, with whom I had not fished for a couple of years, put a worm on his hook. As usual, I baited mine with a piece of salami and some cheese. Then Bruno did something strange. He took a hypodermic needle out of his tackle box. “What’s that for?” I asked, getting nervous. You never know what kind of habits people pick up from their children “Watch,” he said, plunging the needle into the hind end of the worm. "What are you doing to that worm,” I demanded. “I am shooting it up,” he said. “That’s all,” I said, grabbing the oars and rowing toward shore. I did not know what the Wisconsin laws were on the subject, but shooting up a worm had to be at least a felonious perversion. “Wait,” Bruno said. “I only shot some air into his rear end.” "That’s weird enough for me,” I said, picking up speed. “Let me explain,” Bruno said. Which he did at length, and it was an amazing story.

Bruno has become part of a growing cult of Midwestern fishermen who stick needles in the tiny behinds of worms. Apparently there are tens of thousands of fishermen who now do this regularly. At any given moment, on almost any lake in Wisconsin,

someone is doing this to a worm. And they are not even ashamed of themselves. Bruno said, “It is a key part of the philosophy of our leader and mentor, the one and only George Pazik, the world’s leading expert on the science of fishing with worms. Have you never heard of Pazik’s book — ‘Nightcrawler Secrets’?” I had not. I am interested in aldermen’s secrets, Nixon’s secrets, even Chicago socialite Bonnie Swearingen’s secrets. But I could not care less what a nightcrawler has to hide. "The secrets have to do with catching fish,” Bruno said. “That is why we stick them with the needle.” At least he wasn’t doing it for pleasure. He exnlained that this man Pazik has spent much of his life studying worms and how to make fish want to bite them. He has even collaborated with a mysterious old Bohemian

who lives in Wisconsin and does research on worms in his basement. The only Bohemian seeks ways to make the worms grow longer. He feeds them different goodies, and he once grew a worm so long that he went on the Johnny Carson show and held it up

and looked proud. As for the needles, Pazik claims that injecting the worm in the behind with an air bubble makes it float off the bottom. Thus, a dumb fish finds it easier to spot. Not being a fish, I took Bruno's word for that. “We always put the hook through the worm’s

nose, and the needle in his behind.” “How can you tell the difference?” I asked. “There are ways," he said. I took his word for that, too. So many fishermen are needle-wielding disciples of Pazik, the worm master, that it is now consid-

ered one of the three broad styles of freshwater fishing in America. First, of course, there are the traditional fly fishermen — gentlemanly types who get all dressed up like Rex Harrison and wade in streams for trout, whipping their fishing line back and forth as though they are driving mules.

I tried this once, but I ruined my best suit and hooked myself on the lip. It not only hurt, but the game warden fined me because I was an out-of-season catch.

Then there are the Southern bass fishermen, who have made a cult out of their sport. They own hi g h-p owe r e d “bass boats,” which go 75km/h and have built-in sonars. The boats have become a greater status symbol in the South than the pickup truck or even a battle scar.

Most Southern bass fishermen wear cowboy hats and boots, and jackets that have patches saying: “I am a bassin’ man.

A bassin’ man never refers to the bass as a fish, or even as a bass. He calls it: “Mr Bass” or “Old Bucket-mouth,” or “01’ Hog-jaws,” or "OT Hog,” or “01’ Bucketmouth Hog-jawed Hog." Finally, there are the disciples of Pazik the worm expert. They claim that they can catch more fish by putting an air bubble in a worm’s behind, and other shrewd tricks, than by any other means of fishing. I have to admit that when the day had ended, Bruno, with his fiendish needle, had caught all the fish, and I hadn’t caught any. So Bruno cackled and said: “Next time, you’ll try the needle." No, 1 won’t, But maybe that old Bohemian will teach the worms to take a deep breath and hold it.