I’m not sure how many of you know about tarby worm trees, but I have two of them behind my house. I got them about 10 to 12 years ago and they were less than a foot high each. About a decade later they stand about 20 to 24 feet high and supply me with a good bit of tarby worms twice a year.

A tarby worm is just like a catepillar, but they don’t have the fuzz or hair-like bodies. It’s just a smooth surface to their bodies and they are black with bright green markings on them. They are excellent for fishing and you can catch catfish, bass, crappie and bream (pronounced brim) with them. All of the fish in my local area of Canton, Georgia just tear them up when they see a tarby worm in the water.

So where does the tarby worms come from? Every year when the leaves fill out on the tree, they will be white blooms that come on the tree too. These blooms attract moths and the moths will come lay their eggs on the tarby worm trees. It doesn’t take the eggs long to hatch and soon you will have baby tarby worms on your tree. It takes them about 4 to 5 days to become good fish bait. It’s important that once you see the baby tarby worms you make plans to go fishing in the next 5 to 8 days. Normally after about the 8th day, the tarby worms have cleared all the leaves off of the tree and they vanish. I think by the middle of July my leaves on the tarby worm trees will be completely gone. They will grow back again and about 8 to 10 weeks later, you will normally get a 2nd crop of tarby worms during the fall. So you can plan another trip back to the lake and fish with your tarby worms again!