Mrs. Nomad and several of her friends are on an two-day trip to the mountains to check out the fall foliage and since my daughter had a day off from school today, I stayed home so we could spend some time together. Not too long ago, she suddenly started showing an interest in fishing again, so today, we drove to one of the local trout lakes so that she could practice her casting and hopefully, catch a fish. When we left, it was beautiful; sunny and relatively mild but when we got to the lake, a hard, cold wind had picked up and the sun kept hiding behind the clouds, both of which made for miserable conditions to be anywhere near the water. I was ready to go back home after about 10 minutes but my daughter wanted to catch at least one fish before we beat a hasty retreat – and catch a fish she did.
For those of you here locally who’d like to try the trout lakes every now and then, I won’t recommend the one we went to today, which is called Wongok. I fished this lake a few years ago and in my opinion, there are several others which are much better and have more, and bigger fish. Unfortunately, this was one of the only local lakes stocking trout this early in the season - most of the others will start tomorrow (so expect crowds all weekend). If you’re interested, my favorite trout lake is Deokbong (map here); they (used to) give you the option of catch and release or keeping the fish (I think the price is 15,000 won for the former and 30,000 won for the latter). Personally, I don’t like going to these stocked pay lakes that much because there’s really no challenge to catching the fish and unless you get lucky, you’re going to be standing elbow to elbow with other anglers which I, being the antisocial type that I am, absolutely hate. Even today, on a weekday, there were about 15 people fishing when we arrived (which surprised me). But, mission accomplished – the Little Nomad got to practice her casting and she caught a fish, by herself, without Dad butting in. Not once.
Nomad,
Tell the rugrat congrats.
BTW, The pay lake over there behind the rest area on Kyongbu ( I believe that it is just north of your map, Google Earth coordinates: “Pay Lake” lat=37.0622288422, lon=127.144468422) has had trout for well over a month now.
I detect the reflections of a proud father
and a great teacher who knows when to lay back. Are the “commercial” trout tasty? I heard the salmon on the east coast are. I hope so.
Dave,
The coordinates you gave – that’s Wongok, the lake we went to.
Fred,
I hear it depends how you cook them. We were doing the catch & release thing.
Nomad,
What bait here typically works for the stocked trout?
I have berkely trout powerbait in three colors and was planning to also try corn, cheese, and little worms as well as small spinners.
Dave
Dave,
Yep, the power bait works (the yellow always seemed to work the best for us) – but some of the lakes don’t like for you to use power bait and as for lures, I’ve had the best luck with this one:
For some reason, the trout go nuts over this lure. One day, two friends and I caught over 50 fish in a couple of hours on these alone. If you use any kind of lure with treble hooks out at Wongok, the adoshi will tell you that you either have to cut two of the hooks off or stop using it.
Thanks Nomad,
Plan on going next monday and tuesday after the exercise. Hopefully most of the koreans will be at work.
Dave,
Who knows, I may see you out there…depends on the weather and where I decide to go.
Nomad,
Can you find Fox spinners locally or do you have to mail order them. I have some #1 Mepps with silver blade but nothing in blue.
Dave
Dave, anything shiny and flashy *should* work but like I said, out of the different lures I’ve tried, that Blue Fox is a trout killer
As far as I know, you have to order them online – I got mine through Bass Pro but to be honest, I’ve never looked for them over here.