For the second year, Wiscasset is planning "Wormfest" to honor the town's rich tradition of harvesting sand and blood worms from the mudflats of the Sheepscot River area for sale as bait to fishermen around the world. The event takes place Saturday, May 31, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Railroad Avenue along the Sheepscot River in downtown Wiscasset.

Frank Sprague, a Wiscasset resident in his 70s, who owns and runs Sprague’s Lobster across Route One from where the festival will take place, discussed the history of worming in the area in a recent interview.

When he was growing up, worming “was huge” in Wiscasset, he said, and he did a lot of digging in the early 1970s to supply his brother in Blue Hill, who had a sand worm shop there. And even into the early 2000s, worm digging was a way of life for many in the area. In fact, an article in the April 2004 National Geographic declared Wiscasset the worm capital of the world.

The profession has declined in recent years, but is now being “somewhat revived,” Sprague said, because a serious digger can make a good living.

The price of worms has risen dramatically in the last half century, he said. “When I dug worms a blood worm was four cents each.  Now some of them are 95 cents each.” 

Sprague said when he was in high school, there were “probably nine worm dealers in the Wiscasset area who bought from diggers, but now there are only two or three.”

The dealers package the worms in boxes filled with seaweed and send them all over the country and the world, where they are bought by recreational fishermen.

Sprague remembers fondly the James family of seven sons, all who dug. Timmy James, he noted, graduated with him from Wiscasset High School in 1972. 

Sprague guessed that now there are probably 120 worm diggers in Lincoln County. Of these, he estimated “probably 70 of them are serious” diggers. The others may have other jobs, and only dig occasionally. 

Harvesting worms on the mudflats with a rake and a hoe is hard work and depends on the tides. One must have the right equipment and a strong back. Work can take place at any time of day or night, he explained. 

The worst part of harvesting worms, Sprague said, “is if it’s in the middle of the night, and it’s raining and blowing,” and you get wet and cold, “but the best part is for about three hours you are all done.”

​“You’ve made your money, say $300 to $1,000.  And obviously the more serious you are, the more you are going to make. Some people are lackadaisical over it, but some people are really focused.”