They’re not cheap, they can be tricky to get hold of, and they smell, but for me they are the most perfect soft plastic lure that I have come across so far for fishing with a sort of twitch/pause/twitch/wind retrieve. I believe that the OSP DoLive Stick exists mainly as a freshwater bass lure over in Japan, but as with a number of freshwater lures, some anglers have switched on to how deadly some of these things can be for our (sea) bass. Holy cow they are frigging lethal and I am at a loss to think why I nailed on them over four years ago but then for whatever reason left them sitting all alone in a dark corner but have now come back to them with renewed love all over again…….
6'' OSP DoLive Stick, wagasaki colour, rigged on a 5/0 Lunker City Texposer Hook
I have fished mainly with the largest 6’’ DoLive Stick, and you’re looking at a soft plastic that weighs about 15g once you have stuck a 5/0 or 6/0 weedless hook in it. I don’t like using a belly-weighted weedless hook with these lures because I don’t want to change how they are fishing when you pause them and the lure then drops so seductively, but without any extra weight they frigging fly anyway, and they are remarkably stable for a soft plastic. To be honest though, when things start to bounce I’ll have most likely turned to something hard like an IMA Hound 125F Glide anyway.
I have purposefully tried a few different colours of DoLive Sticks out this year and caught on them as well, but it’s quite remarkable how sandeel like the Wagasaki coloured one is when you twitch it around. I know of double figure bass that have been taken on this lure, and whilst there are of course a load of soft plastics that will do a similar sort of job to the DoLive Stick, I have yet to come across one that gives me the same casting ability combined with such a stunning action in the water. Sure, rip the thing too hard and it pops up on the surface, but find the “right” speed and I want to jump in and eat the thing myself. I feel that sometimes it catches me bass when other lures aren’t working and that is exactly what I want from a lure like this if I am going to carry it around with me.
Of course I love getting hit on a hard lure - that feeling you sometimes get when it feels like winding into a brick wall as a decent bass inhales the thing, well it’s awesome isn’t it? But I do love how different it can feel to get hit on a soft plastic that you are really imparting life to such as this OSP DoLive Stick. Sometimes you get a tap, tap, then all goes solid (like with this 8lb+ bass I caught the other day on this lure), or sometimes the rod is nearly ripped from your hands. I am positive you could wind it straight in like a senko and catch bass, indeed you can of course twitch a senko around pretty damn effectively as well, but I like the bit extra that this DoLive Stick gives me and as such I tend to turn to it when I think (hope?) that a subtly fished soft plastic might give me a few fish. You can get into such a good rhythm when fishing this lure, indeed I credit a lad I know who happens to fish this lure very well with inspiring me to get back into using it again. Thank you,
I have had bass rip the odd DoLive Stick straight off the hook on a hit, but that’s the price you pay fishing with soft plastics, and to be fair it rarely happens. It’s a soft plastic so of course it can tear up with a lot of use or via a few fish, but as ever it’s very much worth investing in a bottle of the incredibly useful Mend-It and using it to yes, you’ve got it, mend your soft lures! I have started to play around a bit with the lighter, 4.5’’ DoLive Stick and I really fancy this one for those times when the bass might be particularly spooky, or earlier in the season when say the sandeels might be a bit small and skinny.
If you fish bass fish with soft plastics then you most likely have got a lure like this that you really like, so if I need to go checking something particularly deadly out, then please let us know in the comments section below. Give me the Fiiish Black Minnow, Fiiish Crazy Sandeel, OSP DoLive Stick and of course a few senkos and I reckon I am pretty well covered for my bass fishing these days as regards soft plastics. The pain is that tracking down the OSP DoLive Stick isn’t always very easy - keep an eye on this UK website/shop here as Ben often stocks these lures, or else it’s a case of trawling the internet and buying from abroad.