Fishing Korea

I think I’m taking my resolution not to let the weather affect my decision to fish a little too far.  Even though it rained pretty good last night and it was still misting this morning, I threw caution to the wind and headed out again.  One thing I’ve learned; if it’s windy at the house, then it’s twice as windy out on the river and this morning was no exception.  It was cold, wet and windy out there and the river was high but you know what?  The bass were tearing it up.  The problem, however, was that for whatever reason, I could not land them.  For every bass I caught yesterday, I lost two this morning.  I had close to twenty bites and I’m not talking about hits in the same spot where I had just lost one, but hits in different areas.  I honestly don’t know what the problem was this morning – they would hit the worm, I would set the hook and start reeling them in, and then they would either take me into the reeds or somehow, just get off the hook.

I’m sad to say that this was the only one I managed to land today.  Definitely an interesting morning, to say the least.

You guys didn’t think I was sleeping in these days, did you?  

I almost cancelled this morning after looking at the KMA website and seeing some heavy rain headed straight for this area but I thought about my resolution to not let the weather affect my fishing plans this year – and I’m glad once again that I went out.

Last week, I found an area of the river that had lots and lots of thick reeds along the shoreline and I tried to fish it from the bank but every time I hooked a bass, it took me into the reeds and I ended up with quite a few broken lines and lost Senkos.  So I made up my mind that next time, I would take and wear my chest waders so that I could get out past most of the reeds and fish parallel to them.

This morning, the bass were right in or against the reeds, and they were hitting my four and five inch Senkos very aggressively.  I lost a few Senkos in the weeds and so that I wouldn’t constantly have to walk back and forth to get a new one, I ended up taking a couple of Senkos and one rod and just walked out among the reeds, casting as close to them as I could without getting snagged.  I ended up catching eight bass in about an hour, which is a pretty good morning for this fisherman.          

No, not the title of a porn movie, you pervs .

Rob and I took the boat out on the river today and 15 is the number of bass we caught and although that’s not bad, we had to fish hard for those 15.  The day started out great and we caught several (6, I think – Rob can correct me on that) fish in the first spot we started out at but around 8 or so, the bass started turning off.  I don’t know if it was the bright sun, the warm day, the warm water temperature (the water was in the 70’s in most places we checked) or if a lot of the bass have moved to their spawning grounds already.

Above are the only three pictures I took all day; I honestly thought I took more than that but three is all I had in the camera.  Today’s fish ranged from small dinks up to a couple over three pounds and again, all were caught in or against the weeds/reeds on Senkos fished wacky-rigged and also fished weightless, in various colors.  One thing, the weather was simply beautiful out there today, with no wind at all until right around 5 when we were calling it quits.  Another good day in the books.

“Not again!” you’re saying to yourself but yes, I got up early once again this morning and headed out to the river with Senkos in hand.  It was cold and it was foggy but the bass didn’t care – they just wanted to eat.

Once again, the above two pics are of the same fish, which was the first one I caught on a 5″ Senko, black with blue flakes.  This time, I had my tape measure and my scale – 19 inches long (that’s 48.26 centimeters for you metric types), and it weighed in at 3 pounds, 12 ounces.  Big Momma II

In about an hour of fishing, I caught a total of seven fish, one of which was so small I was surprised it was even able to grab hold of the 4″ Senko I had on the line (and no, I didn’t bother taking a picture of that one).  You tell me; is this a great way to start the new week or what?

After hearing about how Frank and Rob tore ‘em up on Friday, I had to make it to the river. I launched early Saturday morning and immediately started catching bass. I normally like to power fish but Frank told me most of their fish were caught on Senkos. Sure enough, that’s what they wanted, something fished real slow.

I picked up my friend, John A, at 9am and we continued to catch fish until we left at 2pm. I think I caught around 20 bass. The average size was about 1 1/2 lbs, going up to 3lbs. All the fish, no matter the size fought extremely well.

Gochue, the weiner dog, was all over the boat whenever we caught a fish and even though we tried to be stealthy when we saw other boats nearby, he’d start barking and give us away.

I’ve always thought that the Anseong River was a great fishery, plenty of bass and beautiful scenery. Add to that, the fact that the bass are growing fast and you have a terrific place to spend a day. Three or four years ago it was rare to catch a 3 pounder but it seems like a common occurrence nowadays. Now if we could just clean up the trash………..

Yesterday,  Rob and I both took some vacation time so we could take the boat out on the Pyongtaek river, and we had one of those days that’ll be hard to forget for a long time.  We were I was  a bit worried about the conditions because of the cold rain front that had moved through on Wednesday and Thursday, and USFK’s weather forecast called for 10 knot winds all day on Friday – but KMA predicted no wind at all.  Fortunately, KMA was correct for most of the day.  We did have some wind kick up around 9 but it passed after 30 minutes and then it didn’t really pick back up until right around 5:30 as we were calling it a day. (As always, click on the pics to see full-sized images)

We were on the water right after first light and the conditions couldn’t have been any better than they were.

The bass sure seemed to like the weather as well because except for one or two exceptions, we had bites and/or caught fish in almost every spot we hit yesterday.

One problem with fishing the river is the huge number of nets that are all over and which make fishing very difficult.  Not only the nets that you can see, but the numerous ropes and sunken nets which are below the surface, which make for fouled lines and snags galore.

Here’s the River Queen in all her glory.  Ain’t she a beauty? 

You can see the weeds in the pic above and those are the kinds of areas we were targeting yesterday, with very good results.  If there were rocks, along with weeds, we were pretty sure we were going to get bites there.

We caught bass on Senkos fished weightless and wacky-rigged (color and size didn’t seem to matter much yesterday) and also on spinnerbaits.

We were catching them right until the time we decided to call it a day – and by that time the wind was blowing something fierce but even then, the bass were still active.  After we had packed everything up, I went out on a point right where we were parked and made a few casts and caught the fish in the last pic.  That one was in about 2-3 feet of water, and it was pretty unbelievable that the bass were still biting with the way the wind was blowing and the size of the waves that were out there. 

We caught 28 bass yesterday and probably lost 10, if not more.  Without a doubt, one of the best days I’ve had fishing (thanks again, Rob!).  So far, this year has been phenomenal and if this great beginning is a sign of things to come, 2008 should be one for the books, indeed

Our good friends at KMA claimed that this morning would be warm with no wind or rain until later in the day so I headed out to the river again before work.  When I started fishing around 5:40, the river was like glass – just like advertised but by 6:20, the wind started blowing and got progressively worse.  Blah!  In the short window that the bass were biting, which wasn’t even 30 minutes, I batted .500 - I lost two and caught two but once the wind started blowing, the bite stopped completely.

The weather didn’t stop the boaters though…I saw at least 10 bass boats launch from the ramp near where I was fishing, plus four inflatables.

For those of you that don’t know him, Khalil and I are good friends and used to be fishing partners (he’s the one who clued me in that there are bass and bluegill in Korea – I had no idea) until he moved up to Seoul to be closer to his job so these days, although we still keep in touch, we rarely get to see each other anymore or fish together.

Yesterday, he drove down from the big city to fish the Pyongtaek river and he hit pay dirt, big time.  In about a two-hour timeframe, he caught 30 bass and they were all decent size, judging from the below pictures.

Khalil said that all bass were caught on 4 and 5-inch Senkos, with the primary colors being black, watermelon with red flake and black with purple flake.  The power of the Senko!

Today, Rob and I went out in his Porta-boat on the Pyongtaek river and had a great day.  The weather cooperated nicely; for most of the day there was little or no wind and the temperature was quite pleasant once the sun rose and warmed things up.

The bass however, were just a bit on the finicky side though as the day progressed.  We caught most of ours early on, shortly after first light, and then just a few here and there throughout the rest of the day.

The above bass was my first and biggest of the day, the rest were all smaller fish, all caught on (you guessed it) black, four-inch Senkos.  I tried other colors and sizes throughout the day, but had no takers.

Above are just some of the bass Rob caught on five-inch Senkos, fished both wacky-rigged and weightless.  I’m going to have to try fishing the wacky rig next time out because the fish were definitely going for that and Rob had many more bites and caught more fish than I did.  Or, it could also mean that Rob is a better fisherman than I am

This pic was taken around 10 this morning and you can see how calm the water was at that point.  All in all, a heck of a day and I had a blast cruising up and down the river – sure beats having to fight the crowds on shore!  Rob was right though, there are a lot more boats out on the river these days and we saw several very nice full-sized and decked-out bass boats today.  And in my opinion, that Porta-boat is great.  Sure, it’s no Tracker, but it moved along nicely and I found fishing from it to be very comfortable – and we got in a good eight hours of fishing.  It was also relatively easy to set up and tear down.  As I said, a good day and I can’t wait to do it again 

I woke up this morning around 3:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep (someone must have been telling me something ) so I decided to head on out to the Pyongtaek river for an hour of fishing before work, and buddy, I’m glad I went.  It was still dark when I arrived, but it was light enough for the bass to see my Senkos because as you can see below, they were definitely biting this morning. (As always, click on pics to see the full-sized images)

The above two pics are both of the first bass that I caught.  I thought I had snagged a rock because my worm stopped dead…no tug, no tap-tap-tap, nothing…but when I started shaking the rod tip to loosen the hook, the “snag” started taking out drag and what you see is what I ended up with. “Big Momma!”

I caught three more, and lost three as well.  After 30 minutes, my hands were so cold and numb that I couldn’t even hold the rod any more so I had to get into the car and warm up…which I hated to do since the fish were biting and I only had so much time before I had to be at work (and yes, the thought of calling in “sick” did cross my mind ).  All in all, I have to say that was one heck of a way to spend an hour before work and as the weather warms up, it’ll be something I’m going to do a lot more of.  All I was using this morning were 4-inch, black Senkos.  Oh, and I may as well leave you with a nice sunrise pic.