What does it mean when someone says "keep your worms warm" in the following context?
I came across this when I was reading the following:
A fisherman had out-fished his companion all morning long. They used the
same live bait, the same equipment and fished together in the same
mountain stream. But he had almost caught his limit of fish while his
friend had yet to catch even one.“What's your secret?” asked the friend. “I haven't even gotten a bite!”
The angler mumbled an unintelligible answer, causing his companion to ask
again.The successful fisherman emptied the contents of his mouth into a cupped
hand and replied: “I said, 'You have to keep your worms warm.'”
Best Answer
When combined with the implication that what the fisherman spat out into his hand was worms, the phrase "you have to keep your worms warm" becomes the punchline of the joke but there's no special meaning to the phrase... it means, literally, that the man believes that warm worms make for better fishing.
What makes the joke funny is the absurdity of the guy keeping the worms in his mouth which, by most Western considerations, would be disgusting and unpalatable, even if the solution gave you a bucketful of fish... particularly as keeping worms in your mouth isn't the only way to keep them warm, it just happens to be the solution that the fisher decided to use.
Here's another version of the joke:
This version of the joke plays out the fact that the boy was speaking unintelligibly twice until he spat out the worms and repeats the phrase in a way that can be understood... and manages to follow the comedic "rule of threes"