Fishing Korea & Tennessee

I took off work early today and on the way home, decided to stop back by the river real fast for some fishing…the yellow dust was really bad out there so I limited myself to 30 minutes, but that was enough time

This one was 17 inches and was one of the hardest fighting bass I’ve ever had on the line.  This fish did not want to come close to shore and continuously took out drag without tiring.

Yep, it’s Friday and as we know, Friday just isn’t Friday without another installment of "Early Morning Bass."  Well, the dinks are still out there but fortunately for me, so were a few decent-sized ones as well.

That fish in the last picture was 18 inches (that’s 45.72 centimeters for you metric types – that’s still 4.28 cm short of my goal though ).  It was a very good morning out there – the weather was perfect; overcast, no wind (early on) and the water is about as clean as I’ve ever seen it at this particular spot.  This morning I tried both 4 and 5 inch Senkos – the 4 inch in black and different colors with the 5 inch but every single one of my bites came on the 4 inch.  Another most excellent morning – 2008 is almost halfway over and it just keeps on rocking .

Congratulations to ”Foulspoon” for catching this 58 centimeter lunker out of the Pyongtaek river.  That is definitely the biggest bass I’ve seen come out of that river.

For more pictures along with the original post, go on over to Anglerstown.

Well, I think it’s almost time to put the “Early Morning Bass” fishing to rest till fall…it’s getting tough out there on the river.  The water is way down, it’s getting hot out and the bass are being very finicky lately.  I only caught a couple this morning and once again, I had to really work for them.

I tried a shaky head rig this morning and I have to say, I don’t think shaky head fishing is for me.  I never had a single bite but to be honest, I’m not sure I’m doing it right.  I cast out, let the worm sit, and then lightly jiggled the rod tip, while trying not to move the jig itself.  Then I pulled/jerked the jig toward me a few inches and repeated the process.  Boring   I don’t think I have the patience for shaky head fishing and on top of that, I lost a couple to snags…anyone want some shaky head jigs and worms?  LOL

I’m going to try a few more areas this week, weather permitting, but if things don’t improve, I may just take a break for a while and sleep in instead.

I’m sure you guys remember the nice rocky area where I got skunked not once, but twice in a row?  Well, I must be a glutton for punishment because of all the places I could have fished today, I chose that one just to see if I could finally get lucky.  I actually thought it was going to be a great morning because I had a bite on the very first cast and caught three fish within about 20 minutes of each other.  Two were dinks, this is the other one:

Once it started getting light out, however, the bass suddenly stopped biting, period.  Once again, I walked the entire rock bank and threw everything but the kitchen sink but could not get another bite.  I think I’ll hold off on this area until fall…Rob and I did real well there last year in September so maybe the fish don’t start moving in there till after summer.

Rob and I took the boat out on the Pyongtaek river today and although the fishing was tough once the sun rose, we did manage to catch some bass.  The weather couldn’t have been more perfect; there was little or no wind at all and for most of the day, the river was like glass.  Today, the bass were hugging any kind of cover they could find and that’s where we found them – mostly in downed trees.  We caught a few decent fish, but most of them were on the small side – until later in the afternoon.

The four above were the only ones worthy of having their pics taken.  We had one pretty cool episode (except for the way it ended); as we pulled up to a sunken tree, Rob saw a really nice bass in the water, slowly cruising along the side of the tree.  I didn’t see it, but once he told me which was it was heading, I threw my Senko about five feet in front of that area and immediately had a hit.  The fish, which was at least three pounds, grabbed my wacky-rigged Senko and I set the hook – and then the fish jumped out of the water and threw the hook.  Blah.

I had to take my daughter to base this afternoon to take care of some paperwork so Rob dropped me off by the cars around three o’clock, and then went to another area.  As my daughter and I were driving on base, I told her that with the increased cloud cover and cooler temperatures, I bet Rob was doing better in the late afternoon than we had done during the day – and wouldn’t you know it, a few minutes later, Rob sent me a text message that he was cleaning up at the spot he was at.  Here are a few of the pics he took:

Some of these fish are definitely in the post-spawn mode, check out the tail on this one:

All in all, it was another great day.  Hopefully, we’ll get another few like it in before the heat of summer arrives.

I decided to take my little tiny boat out for my last fishing trip before I have to go and make some more money (to pay for my obsession – fishing). I went to a small river that I know has some big bass in it and I was throwing jigs into the overhanging bushes and trees. I managed to land these 2 bass, but lost/missed several others

Then as the wind got too unbearable for my inflatable (even with the 6kg anchor), I decided to pack the boat away and go to the nearby lake (which is my favorite and closest to home lake).

I was fishing frogs over the water-chestnuts and pads and caught these 2 snakeheads and one bass.

I wasn’t trying to catch the snakeheads, but they sure put up a great fight.

Last night, Rob and I were shooting a few emails back and forth and I was mentioning that after those heavy rains we had on Sunday and how high and muddy the river was because of the rain, I was probably going to wait a few days before going out again.  “The fish still have to eat,” Rob shot back.  Indeed, they do, Rob.

Once again, I woke up early and figured, “what the heck…I can at least go out and try some spinner baits and rattle traps, maybe the vibration and flash will get a few fish.” 

The river was still very high this morning, and as you can see in the last pic, muddy as well so to be honest, I didn’t expect to catch anything at all, period.  So imagine my surprise when on the very first cast with a 4 inch Senko (black with blue flakes), I had a bite (which I promptly lost, LOL).  I threw out again and a few casts later, caught my first fish of the morning. 

I ended up catching these three plus four dinks, and I must have lost four or five fish as well.  And all of them were on 4 inch Senkos, black with blue flakes.  I did try the spinner bait, half-heartedly, a few times but after making a few casts, I always went right back to my trusty Senkos .  Yes, Rob, the fish do still have to eat.  Amazing.  It’s days like today that make me realize that the longer I fish, the less I understand these bass.

Wouldn’t you know it, I woke up at 3:15 this morning and no matter how many sheep I counted, I couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up, turned on the coffee pot and got ready to go fishing.  I had such good luck at Yeom Chi last week that I decided to give that lake another try.

I arrived at Yeom Chi right around five and was sad to see that the water level had dropped around five feet from what it was last week and all the cover (trees, bushes, reeds) where I caught all my fish last week was now high and dry.  Here are some pictures of the lake from this morning:

As you can see from the pics above, it was a beautiful morning with no wind at all.  Unfortunately, the bass weren’t in the mood today – I had two bites, both of which I lost/missed.  I walked the entire bank on one side of the lake and by 7:30, I called it quits and headed over to the Pyongtaek river.

The bass were in a better mood at the river, which saved me from yet another skunk.

All my fish were caught on 4 inch, black Senkos today.  I was also trying 5 inch Senkos of various colors on another rod, but didn’t get one single bite with any of them.  As I said, it was a great day to be out there…nice sunny skies, perfect temperatures and no wind at all.  2008 just keeps on rocking!

Well since Nomad is doing so well at it, I decided to give it a go…..but remember I have to drive minimum one hour to find bass.

I set the alarm for 3:30am and was at the lake fishing at 5:00am (I love early mornings….no traffic!!!!). As I got to the lake the fog was so thick I couldn’t see where my lure was landing!!!!

Even though it was so foggy, in the first hour I landed 5 nice bass with spinnerbaits, KaRu Vibraspins and one bass on a tiki toad.

As the fog cleared and the sun came out the fishing slowed a little, so I headed for the freshly growing water chestnuts and found that the bass were just waiting to eat my frogs

That’s where I found this nice 18.5 incher

Thinking that I had just caught the biggest fish of the day I carried on casting over the think plants and “bang” ….. I landed this 19.5 incher which is equal to my personal best (how do I catch that 50cm / 20 inch bass

Then, just as I was about to leave, I got this little fellow. What a great morning

It’s Friday!  And what would Friday be without another installment of "Early Morning Bass?"  This morning I tried yet another area of the river that I haven’t fished in a while and although I started out slow by catching quite a few dinks, it quickly got better.  Here are a couple of my dinks for your viewing pleasure…

Fortunately, the bigger bass were also feeding this morning.

All my fish were caught on 4 inch, black Senkos this morning, except the one in the first pic, which swallowed my 5 inch wacky-rigged Senko all the way down it’s throat.  No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get the hook out so I ended up taking the Senko out of the bass’s mouth and cutting the line, leaving the hook in.  I hate doing that, but I had no choice.  Today was another one of those days where I hated to come to work because the bass were actively feeding and I was getting hits in just about every spot I tried and I’m sure that were I still out there, I’d still be catching fish.