Tough to see the real magic of a cigar worm in the water by the boat. Drop one in an aquarium. Let it fall horizontally, squash your nose on the glass and watch both ends wobble ever so slightly while the bait is in freefall. Watch it turn and glide. Little else about a cigar worm proclaims, “Yes, I really am alive.” Subtle, constant movement like that is hard to duplicate by manipulating the rod tip, though we try.

Shaky-worm techniques are all the rage right now. The industry is awash with shaky worms, shaky jigs, and shaky rods. Classically, shaky worm techniques involve a jigworm, but any kind of worm rigging can apply. The object is to allow a jigworm (or wacky rig, drop-shot rig, etc.) to hit bottom, then lift and shake it by snapping the rod tip up and down. Repeat that process throughout any fish-holding zone, often until the worm is directly under the boat. Make it shake and the fish will take.

Cigars shake all by themselves, in a manner shaky-worm techniques can’t duplicate, though you can certainly shake a cigar with positive results. Shaking or vibrating the rod tip makes a worm jump, flap, bob, and weave while it more or less levitates. It’s fairly aggressive but works tremendously well for smallmouths, at times. However, methods that allow both ends of a cigar worm to vibrate on the drop are highly potent indeed, especially in shallow water, on flat, calm days, in highly pressured fisheries, in extremely clear water, or when any of these conditions are combined. These techniques include drop-shot rigging, wacky-rigging, weightless rigging with offset hooks, and wacky-rigging under a float.

Rigging Versatility

Wacky-rigging a cigar is the easiest way to take advantage of this worm’s natural talents. Hooked through the precise center with a size #4 or size #2 baitholder or wacky-style hook, cigars have enough weight to produce long casts with 6- to 8-pound-test monofilament. Longer casts can be made with 8- to 10-pound superline using a 7- to 7½-foot fast-action medium-power stick. Let the cigar sink on a semi-slack line. Where possible, let it settle on bottom. After a pause, the options are to twitch it in place, lift it high (3 to 5 feet), and let it fall again, or treat it like a shaky worm.

On shallow rock reefs, where it can be dangerous to allow baits to settle, count a wacky-rigged cigar down to a point just above the rocks and pull it gently along. Let it drop a few feet, then lift it back up there while picking up slack. Even around sharp rocks, light line will produce more strikes because casts are longer and the cigar is free to do its thing and glide. When wave action or (purposely) misplaced hooks unbalance a wacky rig, cigars tend to glide off to one side or the other, which amounts to another built-in triggering device.

The same technique can be applied with a jighead, using 6-pound line and a 1/16-ounce bullet, ball-, or darter head instead of a bare hook. A wacky-rigged cigar on a jig falls much more slowly than a cigar rigged with the weight forward in jigworm fashion, with the hook running through the nose and out the back. Wacky-rigging with a jig allows the cigar to work its magic, trembling all the way down. In slightly deeper water, or in the presence of highly aggressive fish, jig-wacky cigars excel.

In middepths, when smallmouths show near bottom, rig a cigar on a belly-weighted worm hook like the Falcon Bait Jerker. In deeper water, when smallmouths are pinned to bottom, a Carolina-rigged cigar works fine on a 2- to 3-foot leader behind a swivel, a glass or plastic bead, and a sliding weight. I often use a Texas-rigged cigar with a Bullet Weight cone-style sinker in these situations, too. Sometimes I peg the sinker up the line to mimic a Carolina rig without the noise.

Nose-hooking a cigar worm and slowly reeling it in accounts for more smallmouths than most anglers are willing to believe. Use drop-shot or baitholder-style hooks in a size #4 or  #2, slip the hook point through the nose of the worm, bring it out on the side, and cast. Let it fall to the desired depth and start reeling slowly, at a pace that keeps the worm horizontal (not rising or falling). The density of a cigar worm produces long casts without weight when using a limp 4- to 8-pound mono, but adding a split shot to the line 10 inches or so above the hook gets the cigar down an extra foot or two on a slow retrieve. The barbs on a baitholder-style hook help keep nose-hooked cigars from sliding off the hook, but if it becomes a problem, substitute a small offset worm hook.

These last few rigging tips are perfect for presenting “cigars in space.” Make a long cast above or beyond bass-holding structure or cover, get on the trolling motor, let out a little more line, then slowly pull the cigar along at about 1 mph. When smallmouths follow plastics up to the boat and turn away, “strolling” a cigar works wonders. The bait remains equidistant from the boat at all times, giving you more chances to trigger followers. Cigars in space turn, glide, quiver on the drop when the boat turns, and rest on bottom during a pause. Few techniques work better for pressured, skittish smallmouths when they hang around in depths of 20 feet or less in clear water. (Unweighted Texas rigs and belly-weighted worm-hook rigging are two more prime rigging options for putting cigars in space.)

When smallmouths hold deep, the most impressive results with cigars tend to result with wacky rigs on a drop-shot setup. During a few days in August on Lake Erie last year it seemed to be the only way to catch any smallmouths at all. Pros finding no bass during prefishing for a tournament at that time were thankful when we shared this information with them. They reported much better catches and bigger fish the next day.

On Erie, the technique that worked involved lifting the rig 2 or 3 feet, then shaking it while it dropped, making both ends of the cigar flap like crazy. Jerry Myers figured this out the day before we filmed with his friend Ron Perrine of Bass ’N Bait Company. That day, bites happened only when we practically shook the color right off the worm. Other days, the best trigger when wacky-rigging on drop-shot equipment was letting a cigar fall softly, right to bottom—let the sinker touch, tighten the line, and let the lure drop. Smallmouths often hit it on the drop or pick it up off bottom when it’s used with a long dropper (about 18 inches between sinker and hook). Obviously, a lot of latitude for experimentation exists between those two methods. But the next method illustrates just how well a wacky-rigged cigar works when left entirely to its own (triggering) devices.

The Bobber Wacky

The most productive wacky-rigging technique I employ with cigars in the North Country (mostly Minnesota and Ontario) involves a float. A bobber-wacky rig is crazy simple and wildly effective when smallmouths gather shallow around reefs, weedlines, and rocky shorelines. Sometimes, nothing works better for smallmouths suspending in depths of 10 to 20 feet in clear water. Smallmouths rise 10 feet or more to hit a wacky-rigged cigar suspended in space, undulating up and down with wave action. Superlines work best because they float. Wacky rigs under floats sit on the water for long periods of time, a situation that makes mono absorb water and sink, compromising hook-sets; so I rig up with 8- to 10-pound Berkley FireLine. Superlines create super casts, too, getting the rig way out of the spook zone around your boat.

A Rainbow Plastics A-Just-A-Bubble slides up on the braid and is “fixed” in place by turning the end cap, which twists the surgical tubing running through the center of the float where line runs through. Fixed floats are important, causing wacky-rigged cigars to drift up at angles when you pull the float, and allowing you to see “up bites” when smallmouths take the bait on the rise. When you pull or manipulate a wacky rig under a slipfloat, the bait rises straight up until it hits the float. Keeping the plastic down while slowly reeling or pulling the float to a new spot is key.

Attach a small barrel swivel below the float, and tie on a 3- to 8-foot, 8- to 10-pound-test fluorocarbon leader, depending on the depth of the area you want to fish. At the business end of the leader, tie on a size #4 Gamakatsu or Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp baitholder-style hook. Because of the potential for requiring long leaders, a long rod is required. The perfect smallmouth float rod, in my opinion, is the telescoping 8½-foot St. Croix Slip Stick. It has the backbone to drive hooks through the hard, plated mouth of a bass and the length to control line.

Now wacky-rig a cigar and pitch it out there. With no other weight on the line, the worm falls as it should—horizontally, with the tapered ends twitching all the way down. Suddenly it stops and suspends, as it reaches the end of its tether under the float, but each wave lifts the worm and the process starts over. Calm days tend to require more manipulation on your part. Smallmouths can hit bobber-wacky cigars on the drop, on the pull, after the float is twitched in place by shaking the rod tip with a tight line, and after a variety of other triggers are applied. Playing with the bobber-wacky to develop new triggering moves is half the fun.

Any waves that won’t swamp the boat are fine. The bobber-wacky system actually produces better in 5-foot waves than it does on flat calm seas. Something about a wacky-rigged, suspended cigar seems to spell “helpless” to smallmouths. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the bait is pulled up by the middle when the rig rises, followed by a slow, fluttering, twitching drop, suggesting a supple but near-death baitfish caught in the roll of the waves. Strikes are aggressive—at times, too aggressive. After a couple bass swallow the hook, I often switch to a hardbait.

Size, Color Conundrums

When a 4-inch cigar fails to catch any bass, I often switch to a different style of plastic or a hardbait. But a few years ago I tried downsizing instead. Switching to a 3-inch YUM Dinger on 4-pound line produced one of the biggest smallmouths of the year. Downsizing often fails on the waters I fish, but when it works, does it ever.

Four-inch units prevail most days. A 5-inch cigar, by contrast, almost always catches smallmouth bass, even in cold water, but tends to produce the best numbers every day only on big bodies of water, like Lake Erie or Lake Michigan. Five-inchers produce best when smallmouths turn on and become extremely aggressive, but size can become a function of matching the hatch. Where smallmouths are accustomed to large chubs, shad, or gobies, 5-inch cigars excel.

In open water, laminated colors (dark on one side and white on the other) produce well. Solid, subdued colors (no metal flake) tend to attract more strikes in clear water. But last summer, smallmouths were buying green pumpkin. Next year it could be purple monkey puke with mustard flake, who knows? Black worked pretty well. Sometimes smoke with black flake. But green pumpkin was off the charts.

Could not catch them on watermelon. What’s up with that? How different is green pumpkin? A little more brownish, yeah, so what? Are bass supposed to be this picky? All summer? Last year they were.

Many cigar worms are stored in the tomb of forgotten plastics (my garage). I eventually unearthed every green-pumpkin version. I found Venom, Berkley, Kinami, Wave Worm, YUM, Case, and other brands in that hue. Out in the sunlight, one man’s green pumpkin looked like another man’s crud brown. Some looked just like watermelon. Some were opaque, others were translucent. Some were shiny, others dull. Some dark, others light. But they all had one thing in common.

It didn’t matter which green-pumpkin cigar worm hit the water, it was getting bit. Even the ones that looked just like watermelon. So I tried watermelon. Nothing. “Come on,” I howled at the fish gods, face to the heavens, fist clenched. “When did smallmouths start reading labels?”

The point isn’t color, however. Color preferences can change over time. The real story is the versatility and fish-catching ability of the cigar worm. The magic in a cigar worm is displayed in the way it vibrates: Subtle, almost imperceptible vibration is the primary calling card. If the object is to avoid bites, rig a cigar worm so that it can’t play that card.