In any case, if you plan on digging blood worms before you go smelt fishing and you are on the eastern side of Cape Breton, make sure you pick up your worm licence from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I have never dug for marine worms in the Minas Basin where I expect the soft mud would make for easy digging but finding 50 worms in the sand and rock bottom found in the eastern part of the province would be a fair piece of work.
This allows diggers to pick 50 worms per day. Although anglers after a few worms for their own use do not have the same impact as commercial diggers they are caught in the same net and must purchase a recreational worm license which sells for $10 plus tax. The demand for worms created conflicts between commercial worm diggers resulting in the implementation of a licensing system to control harvest. The licence was implemented to deal with problems down in the tidal flats of the Minas Basin where a number of commercial worm diggers make their living digging worms. This demand has helped fuel an industry which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans estimated is worth $4 million a year in Nova Scotia. They are a very popular bait for saltwater anglers in Europe and the United States where anglers are willing to pay up to one dollar per worm. Blood worms get their name from a bright red streak which runs down their back. They are not to be sold, traded or bartered.īlood worm is the name given to one of a variety of marine worms found on the East Coast which includes sand worms and clam worms. However, on the east side of Cape Breton, in the Scotia-Fundy, or Maritimes Region, from Cape North down to Port Hawkesbury, a licence is required to dig sand worms for your own use.
On the gulf side of Cape Breton no licence is required to dig or possess sand worms.
I made a call to the local office of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and they told me that, yes, depending where you are, a licence may be required if you want to dig for marine worms. Since I don't use them myself I hadn't given much thought to it but I told him I'd check on it for him. I received a phone call the other day from a friend who wanted to know about the regulations regarding the use of sand, or blood worms, for bait.Ī few years ago the Department of Fisheries and Oceans brought in a requirement that people digging sand worms for bait required a recreational sand worm harvesting licence.
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