Florida town celebrates worm grunters' talents

SOPCHOPPY, Fla. -- As professional grunters, Gary and Audrey Revell get up before sunrise and drive 25 miles over dirt roads deep into the heart of the Apalachicola National Forest to catch worms.

As the sunlight barely pokes through the pine trees, they climb out of a Ford pickup truck adorned with a bumper sticker that reads "Welcome to the South. Now go home." Audrey hauls a sack filled with empty one-gallon buckets and Gary carries a 10-pound iron rod and a wooden stake.

After hiking off the trail a short way, Gary slams the stake -- called a stob -- into the ground, gets on his knees and starts rubbing the iron across the top. He keeps a steady pace and the vibration is rhythmic, almost like a musical instrument. Within a minute, the ground is writhing with worms and Audrey quickly picks them up and tosses them in a can.

"See 'em all," Gary says. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight -- it's magic."

Indeed, it is a sight to behold, and this Panhandle town honored the work of people like the Revells on Saturday with the annual Worm Gruntin' Festival.

A couple thousand people from around the South and beyond pulled into this town of 600 about 30 miles outside of Tallahassee near the Gulf of Mexico.

"We've been traveling around the country trying to find things like this," said Dave Hodgkins of Anacortes, Wash., who was with his wife, Fran. "We've been to some strange stuff, but this ranks right up there near the top."

In a field near town, the crowd watched as 5-year-old Emma Donaldson was crowned the worm queen, with rubber worms dangling from her tiara.

Then about 50 children and adults began rubbing their stobs with irons. The ground started to shake.

Jeff Allen, who grunted professionally until about two years ago, stood back and watched with a smile.

"I love it," he said. "They're doing good. You feel that vibration? When you feel that rhythm in your feet, they come up."

He's more then qualified to assess the technique.

"Back when I was 6 years old, Mom and Dad had us out there" in the national forest, Allen said. "I've picked up a million cans."

A tough living

It's not an easy way to make a living. The Revells make about $20 a can on the worms, which they sell to bait shops and fishermen. Each can holds about 500 worms. The day before the festival, it took almost two hours to fill their first two cans.

"People I bring out here say 'Man, you're crazy to go in the woods like that,'" Gary Revell said as mosquitos and flies swarmed around.

Bad weather can make it difficult to find worms and the wildlife can add to the adventure. He and his wife have run into rattlesnakes and bears while on the job.

The work can be tough on the body. Revell grips his iron so hard that a hand print has worn into the metal over time. As he rubs his stob, he grunts as if he's lifting weights.

"It takes a while to get that hand print in," he said. "The vibration on you hands, sometimes it makes them swell at night and hurt. And being down on your knees on that wet ground and the cold -- they ache."