Follow-Ups to Answer from Expert Eric R. Eaton

---

Brandon wrote at 2009-03-20 03:40:32
I am from Dothan, Alabama. Born and raised.And i have also caught chicken chokers. I always used long strands of grass though. Kinda like fishing. Only instead of `using` a worm you were `catching` a worm. i never knew what they were either. I have always called them chicken chokers too. But every time i pull one out of the ground my friends freak out.

---

wolfgang wrote at 2009-04-07 17:59:11
I was told that they were called chicken chokers because as a chicken would eat them, they would pinch or ball up in a chickens throat cutting off there air, thus chicken chokers.

---

Bryan wrote at 2010-01-06 20:22:28
I remember chicken choker fishing in North Alabama, as a child during recess on the school grounds. We used a fresh pulled wild onion, found a small round hole in the ground, bit off the bulb and spit on the end. Feeling a tug you jerked the onion and out popped a maggot like bug. Just like catching fish.

---

Jake wrote at 2010-04-28 22:22:26
Man I guess these things are popular in Alabama, cuz I lived in Corner Alabama when my friend first showed me how to catch one. I live in Hayden and I know show other people who have never heard of em'. I found that Pine Needles work best for me, the brown ones.

---

DMBL wrote at 2010-05-02 00:10:51
I know someone from Mississippi whose mother taught her how to catch chicken-chokers using stiff hay stalks.  These grub like worms are generally found slightly below the surface of nearly perfect spherical indentations in the soil.  The grubs  tend to grasp gently inserted hay stalk permitting extraction by those who possess both the patient and reflexes during the intermittent tug. Care must be taken, however, to ensure spiderholes are not mistaken for these spherical pockets.  

---

Mack wrote at 2010-07-18 02:55:50
I grew up in Muscle Shoals, AL in the 60-70's and I remember jigging these worms well. I haven't thought about it 35 years but I'm going to look for holes tomorrow.

---

Ron wrote at 2011-01-06 05:25:01
I lived in around Columbus MS. in my formative age of 11-13 and remember fishing for these at recess. Like also digging for crawdads out from their little castles built from little round mud balls above the ground (and below where the water table was just a foot beneath the surface), reaching down to the bottom you found his room, then when he pinched you, you pulled up hopefully bring him up.  

---

Greg wrote at 2011-07-28 00:03:49
Ahhh yes, the chicken choker. Well, my son today asked my about some funny burrows in the ground. I told him there were bugs in there that you could catch. Finally I remembered days on my Alabama schoolyard playground catching chicken chokers. We also caught a catfish that weighed 87 lbs. out of Lake Gunterville in Alabama fishing with the chicken choker, after we fished out the chicken choker itself. So, all you braniac folks that dispute the existence of such a creature we Alabamians know better!  

---