Early this morning, my friend Jim and I headed out for a day of fishing. We started out near Asan Bay in an area that’s really good for bass during late April/early May, but as you can see in the pics below, the weeds are still too thick close to the shore so without a boat (hint hint, Rob) you can’t get to open water. Plus, there are more nets in the water than I’ve ever seen.
So after a few casts with no results, we headed off to Idong reservoir for some bluegill, which are Jim’s favorite fish. The water level is still very low – just to give you an idea, the island you see in the below picture will be completely submerged by next spring when the water is back to normal.
But catch bluegill we did, and how. Thanks to the low water level, we could see a lot of the structure like trees and large rocks which are usually completely under water – and that’s where the bluegill were hanging out. We caught all our fish on live worms and also on white, 1/16 oz. rooster tails.
In the left picture above, you can get an idea of the average size we were catching today, and the pic on the right shows that Jim went home a happy camper…well, he’ll be happy once he finishes cleaning all those fish. We both lifted that bag and tried to make a guess of the total weight and we both guessed around 30-35 pounds of fish and we probably threw back just as many as we kept because they weren’t big enough. On another note, I was reminded of a painful lesson that I should have learned long, long ago – Last time I went out, I got snagged and tightened my drag so I could break my line and I forgot to loosen the drag again before I went back out. Right before we went home, I put on a 3″ black Senko to see if the bluegill would hit it, and cast toward the submerged trees. Much to my surprise, something big grabbed the worm and took off like a bat out of hell. I set the hook and started reeling and a beautiful bass came up, jumped, took off again, and promptly broke the line – because my drag wasn’t set. And this isn’t the first time the exact same thing has happened to me so needless to say, I was a little upset with myself for forgetting the basics. But all in all, it was a great day – the weather was perfect, and the fish were biting. I can’t ask for more.