Chartreuse Earthworms that Smell Like Garlic

Interview: Paul Giannaris, owner of Andy's Bait International in Toronto, discusses the newest thing in fishing,

8/11/2000

Morning Edition (NPR)

Host: HOWARD BERKES
Time: 11:00 AM-12:00 Noon
 
Most inventors dream of building a better mousetrap. Paul Giannaris of Toronto figured he could build a better worm--well, a better-looking and smelling worm that fish couldn't resist. Giannaris is an organic chemist who inherited the family bait shop. He combined the two vocations, spent four years experimenting on thousands of worms and has come up with greenish-yellow crawlers that smell like garlic.

Mr. PAUL GIANNARIS: We've taken the standard worm that's been around since the '50s and used by everyone in fishing and tried to improve it by adding a color to it and a scent, the argument being that if fish can see the worm from further distance, it'll attack it.

BERKES: These are live worms, right?

Mr. GIANNARIS: These are live Canadian night crawlers that you would buy out of any retail shop or any bait shop, and now they're live chartreuse Canadian night crawlers.

BERKES: What exactly do you do to these worms?

Mr. GIANNARIS: Well, basically we add a formulation into their food, into their bedding, and the worm consumers that formulation. As it consumes it, it changes the color internally. Once the worm is removed from the formulation it will revert harmlessly back to its original color in about a week's time. So it's a completely reversible process.

BERKES: And you're not only adding color, but you're adding smell?

Mr. GIANNARIS: Yeah, we've--actually, we started by adding the fluorescent chartreuse color and now we've added to that a garlic smell. It seems that garlic is the number-one selling scent in the fishing industry. So we decided to add it to the worm just to make it a little more enticing for the fish.

BERKES: And so the fish can actually see and smell these worms better?

Mr. GIANNARIS: That's the idea. And it has been shown that fish do have--at least certain fish, for example--bass have more visual receptors, color receptors than humans. So the argument is if they're there, they must be used for something. And we figure it's to see color. The chartreuse is the only color that is visible at depth and you can't fight history. Fluorescent chartreuse is, by far, by far, the best-selling color in the industry. There's nothing that even comes closer to that.

Smell is a little different. The argument is you can't smell things from that far a distance. But in our design, we're hoping the color brings the fish close enough so that it can get a scent and then, hopefully, the scent will finish it off.

BERKES: How did your work in organic chemistry come in handy when you were experimenting with this?

Mr. GIANNARIS: It always helps to have a background, especially in chemistry. It allowed us to look at the problem in a different way than had been done in the past. Usually people in this industry who had tried to make a better worm had basically added A and B together and saw if it worked. But when we approached this problem, we looked at it from a molecular point of view and tried to determine how things interacted and how they would work. So I guess all that chemistry did come in handy after all.

BERKES: What's next in the bait business?

Mr. GIANNARIS: We are going to stick with our fluorescent chartreuse because we know it's very effective, and then we will alter it by perhaps altering scent or the characteristics to make it species specific. So we should be able to buy a designer worm that will go preferably after bass or use it for trout or perch. That would be the concept.

BERKES: Thank you very much.

Mr. GIANNARIS: Thank you, Howard.

BERKES: Paul Giannaris is the owner of Andy's Bait International in Toronto and the inventor of the NitroWorm.

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