The Sopchoppy Worm Gruntin’ Festival: Florida’s Squirmiest Tradition
Every second Saturday in April, a town of 426 people in Wakulla County hands out wooden stakes and steel files, then sends everyone into the dirt. The goal: make the earth vibrate until worms crawl to the surface. Welcome to the Sopchoppy Worm Gruntin’ Festival, where one of Florida’s strangest traditions has been drawing crowds since 2000.
A Woman, a Stake, and 11 Kids to Feed
Lossie Mae Rosier started it all around 1950. Living near the Apalachicola National Forest, she discovered that driving a wooden stake (called a “stob”) into the sandy soil and rubbing a flat piece of steel across the top sent earthworms scrambling to the surface. The vibrations mimic the movement of moles, the worms’ natural predator, so they flee upward right into a collector’s waiting hands. Rosier sold the worms as fishing bait and used the income to raise her 11 children. By the 1960s, hundreds of grunters were working the forest floor, harvesting millions of worms and fueling a bait industry that supported entire families across the region.
Charles Kuralt and the IRS
The tradition caught national attention in 1972 when CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt showed up to film a segment for his “On the Road” series. The exposure was a mixed blessing. The U.S. Forest Service began issuing permits to regulate harvesting, and the IRS started looking into unreported bait income. The commercial industry faded over the following decades, but the technique never disappeared from Sopchoppy’s backroads.
How to Grunt Your Own Worms
The festival keeps the tradition alive with worm gruntin’ contests, live music, a 5K race, and even a college scholarship. If you want to try it yourself, the technique is simple: pound a stob into moist ground, then rub a flat iron back and forth across the top. The vibrations travel through the soil, and within minutes, worms start popping up around your feet. The festival is held in downtown Sopchoppy, about 35 miles south of Tallahassee on Highway 319. Admission is free.
