PLASTIC FANTASTIC
If there is a better twitchbait-style soft plastic lure for bass fishing, Henry Gilbey would like to know…
Find out about the OSP Do Live Stick.
OSP DOLIVE STICK SOFT PLASTIC LURE RRP: £10.49
I hope it’s the case these days that the more I learn about lure fishing for bass, the less gear I end up carrying.
As much as I love playing around with any number of lures, the soft plastics I might take out bass fishing would be a selection of Fiiish Black Minnows and Crazy Sandeels, a few senkos, especially the white ones for night fishing, and a bunch of the killer OSP DoLive Stick soft plastics, mostly in the 6in size. If there is a better twitchbait-style soft plastic lure out there for our bass fishing then I have yet to come across it.
I like lures that cast well, and, for a 6in soft plastic, it’s amazing how well the OSP DoLive Stick flies. Indeed, at around 15g rigged weedless/weightless, it is as heavy as many hard lures I would use. There are any number of these twitchbait-style soft plastics out there. Look for soft plastic jerkbaits from the US largemouth bass market for starters, but this Japanese-designed OSP DoLive Stick in the 6in size is that bit heavier and therefore casts that bit better. I like this to help cope with a bit of breeze and, of course, cover more water.
EASY FISHING
The OSP DoLive Stick is not a cheap soft plastic, but when you rig them weedless and weightless on an Owner Twistlock size 5/0 hook, it is very rare to lose any through snagging. I don’t tend to like any extra added weight with these lures, such as a belly weight on the hook.
If you start catching a few fish and the lure begins to tear up, take it off, put a new one on, and then mend the damaged one at home with some Mend-It soft plastic glue.
Fishing with these lures for bass could not be easier, but, of course, there are any number of ways you could do so.
I cast out and fish it fairly slowly and steadily with a deliberate kind of “twitch, pause, twitch, pick up the slack, twitch, pause” and so on. On a weedless hook, the lure will fall horizontally when you let it sink a little, and using this retrieve style I am fishing the lure nice and shallow. That means it works well over the kind of shallow, broken ground we love for our bass fishing.
I find that either a bass simply hits the lure and my rod tip slams over almost before I have realised, or I get a hard thump that then translates into a hard strike from me the moment I feel another tap from the fish.
I love this style of lure fishing and I wonder if I’ll ever find a soft plastic twitchbait that I like more than the OSP DoLive Stick.
Now it’s available in white, at my request, from the guys at Lurefishing for Bass, the online store in Hertfordshire.
In addition to white, other patterns/colours are Electric Shrimp, Ghost Hasu, Green Pumpkin Pepper, Lively Wakasagi Silver Flake and Wakasagi.