Plastic worms have evolved over the years from the basic nightcrawler-shaped wigglers crafted by inventor Nick Creme in his kitchen in Akron to an array of lures engineered to fit a variety of tactics.

Whether fished Texas-style with a small bullet weight; weightless on a wacky rig or any of a dozen other presentations, plastic worms are perhaps the fish-catchingest artificial lures in anglers’ arsenals. They likely have accounted for more bass catches than any other class of lures.

We are hard into worm season here in northeastern Ohio. My boat is loaded with an assortment of worms and set-ups to capitalize on teasing fat largemouth bass into biting on Mosquito, Pymatuning, Milton and Berlin.

Once the calendar flips to May, I always have a spinning rod or two ready with a wacky-rigged Senko to pitch to bluegill nests. Bass know that when the sunfish are spawning, they can be easy pickings.

A weightless Senko, rigged with the hook through the “egg sack,” tricks the bass into believing it is a bewildered bluegill as it slowly quivers to the bottom. Strikes can be vicious or subtle, so savvy anglers learn to pull back when the lure seems to be swimming on its own.

The tried-and-true Texas rig is still as popular as ever. Rigged so the hook point is tucked back into the body of the bait, the set-up is snag-resistant. It can be pulled through submerged vegetation, brush piles and the branches of trees that have fallen into the water.

Another popular soft-plastics technique is the so-called swimming worm. Anglers rig the worms Texas-style, with the hook point hidden in the lure body, and retrieve with a steady speed that makes the worm appear to be swimming. The technique is used to fish the bait relatively high in the water column to tease fish that are not hugging the bottom.

Strikes typically are unmistakable, as bass attack from the side or from behind. The lure’s sudden stop is the cue that even novice anglers can recognize as a bite.

Texas-rigged and swimming worms are weighted with a bullet sinker that rides at the head of the worm. A specialized set-up known as the Carolina rig puts the sinker 1 to 3 feet ahead of the lure itself.

Carolina-rigged worms are fished in a manner that causes the lure to float and hover just off the bottom. The angler drags the sinker across the bottom, with the worm following along relatively free of the heavy weight.

The drop-shot rig is another tactic that is popular among bass anglers. It works great across the country, including our local reservoirs and Lake Erie.

Anglers tie their hook 12 to 18 inches up the line and add the weight at the very end. The weight bounces off the bottom, and the worm wiggling up above the bottom proves to be very tempting for largemouth and smallmouth bass.

Nick Creme never could have imagined the sizes, shapes, colors and tactics that evolved from his early plastic worms. And given the great imagination of today’s anglers, it’s a safe bet the venerable plastic worm will continue to evolve as a phenomenal fish-catcher.

Jack Wollitz writes this column weekly for readers of The Vindicator and Tribune Chronicle. Contact him at jackbbass@gmail.com.