"Good Lord! He'll show up with a coffee can full of worms. Red can -- Hills Brothers." -- Brad Pitt as Paul Maclean, "A River Runs Through It"

It's easy to see where Maclean, a lifelong flyfisherman, was coming from. I fly-fished the Big Blackfoot in Missoula, Mont., and an out-of-towner and his can o' worms could put a damper on the whole experience in a hurry.

This, however, isn't Montana, and we're not talking blue-ribbon trout rivers. The late summer season in the Golden State means one thing: big, hungry bass.

What's that got to do with a coffee can full of worms? As painful as it is to admit, if you want to catch monster bass, baiting up with live worms (gulp!) might be your best bet.

I wouldn't recommend night crawlers during the spring and early summer seasons in the Sierra Nevada, but when summer winds down there's nothing more exhilarating than landing a lunker largemouth, and it seems there's no better way to entice these stubborn potbellies than to wiggle a fat, juicy worm in front of them.

Whatever happened to the night crawler anyway? Back in the day, the worm was a kid's best friend -- a catch-all bait for trout, bass, sunfish, catfish and carp. Nowadays, night crawlers are about as in style as mullets and polyester, and that's a shame.

WHY WORMS?
Fishing live bait might not be the trendiest approach in today's tournament-crazed bass world, but even legendary bass fisherman Roland Martin admits he's fished with live bait while tracking monster bass. Martin, who hosts the television series "Fishing with Roland Martin" and was recently named one of the Top 10 Greatest Anglers by Bassmaster, told a room full of anglers at the Fred Hall Fishing, Tackle and Boat Show that some of the best bass he's caught came on live bait. "I've tried everything to catch trophy bass," he said in San Francisco. "I've caught them with night crawlers. I've even tried live crawfish. Some of the biggest bass I've caught came on live bait in situations where anglers had tried everything to fool these fish." If live bait is good enough for a nine-time BASS Angler of the Year, you'd figure everyone would be chucking worms these days, but that's not the case. So why doesn't anyone fish with worms?

Anglers who believe in the worm point the finger at the corporate fishing world, which they say is stuck on fishing for big bucks -- as in dollars -- rather than behemoth bucketmouths. According to the American Sportfishing Association, 45 million U.S. anglers spend more than $42 billion a year on fishing tackle, trips and related services, with each angler spending an average of $1,046 a year on their craft.

In California, one of the three biggest fishing states (next to Florida and Texas), annual retail sales of fishing equipment has surpassed $2.4 billion -- with night crawler producing only a small percentage of those sales. The real money is being made on artificial baits. "Go-to lures" like the Castaic T Series swim baits, which can sell for $125, or the Waking Hard Bait by 3:16 Lure Co., which sells for $150.

Night crawlers? Well, worms are lucky to bring in $2.49 at the bait shop around the corner from your favorite fishing hole, but they can net the same big results as swimbaits. Just ask trophy bass hunter Chris Wolfgram of Suisun. He's caught five double-digit bass and loads of 8- and 9-pounders on night crawlers over the years.

"My biggest is 14.1 pounds," he said, "and it was a fish that everybody had thrown every artificial lure they had to, for more than a week with no success. She was completely spawned out, too, some 28 inches long. She should have been over 16 pounds.

"Night crawlers work, I just think they're looked down upon because of corporate brainwashing. Too many people let others make up their mind for them."