Fish or cut bait

This is a catalpa (or catawba) worm. It's the caterpillar stage in the life cycle of the Catalpa sphinx moth. The moths lay zillions of eggs on the leaves of catalpa trees, and when they hatch, they (very swiftly!) eat all the leaves & climb down to the ground to pupate in the dirt. I think you'll get a larger picture if you click on that one, & you can sort of see the bare twigs where there used to be leaves. Apparently these make excellent fish bait, but I'll probably never confirm this myself. I'm also told that there is a species of hunting wasp that lays its eggs on these particular caterpillars; haven't seen any of them yet, though.