White Rag

Went digging for bait on Sat morning, going for lug and got a heap.
As we were digging, a lot of white rag were coming up with the lug.
Some were of a decent size, and some were tiny. Are they normally found in with lug?
Lively little things, makes normal rag look like its in slow motion!

went digging for lug on sunday and found exactly the same, those little (very small) rag were like larger rag on speed. It was the first time I went digging for lug, do you have to break them in half and throw away the bit with the sand in it? One of the large ones we got was black and about 6" long and was nothoing (size or colour) like the others we dug?

I break that bit off, keep the main body of it.
White rag were damn quick to bite, barely touch them and they've swung round and tried to nip you! :shock:

Hi

Probably preaching to the converted here but given it was your first time digging lugworm...

When you're breaking off the sand filled tail on lugworms, always leave a half inch of it attached otherwise the guts will spill out all over the place and the bait loses most of its scent trail and fishing attraction...

With apologies if I am stating the obvious...

True, even a small cut on them and everything just bursts out.

kieran, no you're not stating the obvious. So these guys are in two parts then :?: I found that some of them were much longer than the others, maybe the tail stayed in the sand when I got them out? not much movement to them though.

I also caught a few crabs, is there a humane way to kill these guys :?: I went down to dollymount for lunch and practised on a few dead crabs I found. They're easy enough to pop open but I didn't see much meat in them or any way to extract enough of it and put it on a hook :?:

Hi Kiwijbob,
It's not the inside of the crab you use ,but the whole thing.
For a crab to grow it has to shed it's hard outer shell and when doing so becomes a softie or peeler,and it's at this stage when the crab is superbly attractive to most fish.Just hook the whole soft crab on,Tie some shirring elastic round it for security whilst casting and then hang on to your rod as sometimes they are irresistable to fish.

Hi,
after reading the last few articles I think I might be presenting lug incorrectly. I have been threading the lug onto the hook as I would rag. However after a few minutes in the sea, all that is left of the lug is skin. As soon as I pierce the lug its guts fall out. Is there are way to get lug onto a hook without all the tasty gooey bits falling out?

Cheers,
Conor

Are you putting the hook on, then out the other side of the body, then through again? That would lead to a gooey mess.
Put the hook straight down through the head of the lug and feed the lug on to the hook shaft and up the line, or however you want it presented.

But constantly putting the hook through the body of the lug in a threading pattern will just ruin it.

dances! i used to have the same problem as u, but now i use a thing called a 'bait needle'. basically is stops the hook point from piercing the body of the lug and inso doing leaves all the juices intact. great invention and cheap.