So, the Little Man wants to know what kind of animals are out there in the dark, anyway?

He sure is a sight as he asks, too. All 4 1/2 years wadded up in a hooded sweatshirt, Red Sox cap and rubber boots thrown on over his camouflaged pajamas just before 9 p.m. — on a schoolnight, no less. He holds the flashlight as if he's trying to spot something 30 feet away, not 3 feet below his chest.

"It's like we're fishing for worms," he says, glancing over his shoulder to make sure there's no scary monster he can't see in the darkness. "It's like we're trying to catch them and put them in worm jail where they will die."

"But we don't want them to die," I tell him.

"Why not?"

"Because we want them to be alive, wiggling so that the fish will see them and want to eat them," I tell him.

He may not be convinced, though I am.

I was reading in an issue of Field & Stream magazine that live bait — despite all our advances in lures of all types, soft and hard, floating and sinking — still works best. Nature prefers things natural. It's the same reason we try and "match the hatch" with our fly rods.

It's also strange for me to play the role of "Dad" in the darkness, scouring the dooryard for nightcrawlers. But it remains one of many important steps I must take to pass on the outdoors heritage to the next generation.

Trying to use skinny fingers to beat nightcrawlers back into the ground is a simple step, but one that could one day hold the magic for Little Man the way it did for me as a boy.

And, as magical and mythical as the night can be, won't the process be even more magnficent for him the minute he hooks into a hungry little smallmouth bass — caught on the very same worm he arrested, booked and put into "worm jail" a couple of days before?

As long as they don't die.