Fishing Korea & Tennessee

Just sending you a post for a spectacular trout fishing trip we had this weekend at Eleven Mile Reservoir and the South Platte River just below the lake. We left very early for about a one hour trip from Colorado Springs to the lake and river. It was a beautiful drive where we got to see a herd of elk, antelope, and mule deer. We also got to see a red fox and some coyotes. I can say that this place is very beautiful, well kept and clean. When we got to the lake, we found a small cove where we threw spoons, spinners and finally fly fished. Between me and my partner we caught about eighty 12-14 inch trout before we got tired and went to the South Platte River to go after some bigger trout. We managed to catch some bigger trout (Rainbows, Cutbows, and Browns) and kept the ones on the picture for a fish BBQ. All in all this was the best trout fishing trip I have ever been on and am looking forward to catching a trout this year that will go over 5 pounds. I just have to be patient and eventually she will end up at the end of my line, I hope. Tight lines to you all and keep catching them nice bass in Korea before they become extinct.

I woke up this morning to clear skies and calm winds and decided to take the rugrat fishing. I didn’t think we would do very well because of the weather yesterday, but I let my daughter be the guide and decide where to go. I gave her the choice of bass, bluegill, or rainbow trout. She chose rainbow trout so we packed up and went to my two favorite pay lakes that she usually hammers them on and low and behold neither one of them have trout fishing this year (Sangiland and the smaller of the two lakes by the drive-in theater). She then decided we would have to try for bluegill. We drove out to Idong and was going to try the north shore. I didn’t think that I could make it up the hill in my Daewoo Prince on the north side, so we tried the south west side near the dam. No bites. To my astonishment, there were about 40 to 50 boats on Idong by 9:30 a.m. Must have been a club or tournament going on. My daughter decided we should go try the Hwy 82 lake. She likes it there because the dude lets her fish there for free and brings her ice cream. We caught about a dozen nice gills, but it is still a little too cold and there wasn’t enough sun to give them any energy. She did hook into a nice 4.5 lb mirrored carp though and got another good photo for the album.

Dave

Since I’m going back to Angola next week [add big sobbing smiley here] I wanted to get my boat on the water for the first time this year and have a good day’s fishing…and that is exactly what I had!!

I drove up to JangSung Lake (on Expressway 25) on Wednesday night to get an early start on Thursday morning. This is the decent sized lake I fished at last year where they had built a huge new boat ramp. Well, when I got there that ramp was all locked [add super angry smiley here]. This seems to be the trend here in Korea these days. I drove around in the dark and eventually found another ramp which was also locked, but had some other bass boats there so I was a little hopeful. The next morning a guy came and opened the gate and my fishing day started.

With the new moon approaching, the bass were in full spawn and once I found the depth they were spawning at I started catching bass after bass. 80% of the bass I caught were all females and full of eggs and almost all of them were over 3lbs.

I won’t bore you with too much writing but will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Here’s the biggest fish of the day, 50.5cm and 4lb 6oz

Here’s one I caught on a spinnerbait I made myself just last week, that is a great feeling 

Here’s some more fishy photos,

I took a friend out fishing at Pyongtaek on Saturday. He had never done any type of fishing in his life so this was a new experience for him. We got a bit of late start and didn’t get on the water until around noon. It was looking like his first trip might turn out to be a failure for the first couple of hours because we didn’t get so much as a sniff. But then around two o’clock, he said he thought he was caught on something. Turns out that what he was caught on was about a one pound bass. Then the activity picked up a bit.

Over the next three hours we caught five more fish. My friend doubled his personal best (which was earned with his first fish) with a two pounder and I caught two of the largest bass I have ever caught in Korea. Actually, I believe they would rank at number 2 and number 3 among the fish I have caught here only behind a 5+ pounder I caught at Andong a few years ago. The first one weighed in at 3 lbs. 14oz. and about 1/2 centimeter below 50 cm (no matter how I tried to stretch it). The second one weighed in slightly smaller at 3 lbs. 11 oz. but it hit 50 cm on the nose. We caught them all on yellow/green spinner baits and mostly out of thin grass cover. I tried throwing some soft baits too, but didn’t have any luck with them. All of the fish except the first one were caught fishing backwards over an area we had fished previously without any luck. Either they moved in during the time we were away or else their attitudes changed about whether they were going to bite or not. Anyway, here are some pics…

Our total catch was only six fish, but their total weight was over 12 pounds. Not a lot of fish, but some decent sizes. All in all, not a bad afternoon.

It was Wednesday and the weather forecast was good, so I went fishing (I probably would of gone if the forecast had been bad)….lol

I started at one small lake at 6:00am and fished for about 45 minutes without any sign of a fish, and then all of a sudden the bass started to feed. I could see the bass chasing small bait fish all over this lake. It was great to watch these little baitfish jumping out of the water trying to escape from the bass with the bass in hot pursuit. I tied on several topwater lures to try and immitate the fleeing baitfish, but they would bite anything I tried. Then I remembered about a rig that I hadn’t tried before a “Donkey Rig” or “double fluke rig” as it is also known. Here’s a quick drawing of the rig.

I was fishing this rig right under the surface and the bass would slam this rig. I caught 37 bass on the day with about 30 of them coming on this rig. Unfortunately, I never hooked 2 bass at the same time….that would of been fun 

OK, here some fishy pics…

And of course there was the dinks, this one could of fit inside the palm of my hand

That’s what it was this morning out there at the river.  I got out there around 5, and it was so cold that I was back in the car like every 10 minutes to warm up my hands.  And on top of that, the bass weren’t in the mood to eat.  I didn’t get a bite till after 6.  I tried spinnerbaits and crankbaits with not a bite, but caught two dinks on Senkos.  I started walking the shore, casting and caught this one in the rocks.

Speaking of dinks, check out the baitfish I caught yesterday at lunchtime   I’m almost embarrassed to put these pics up LOL

I am a member of a bass club based in Ulsan (and I’m the only foreign member) and every month we have a get to together come tournament where the 3 biggest bass on the day wins a prize, nothing huge, but it’s fun.

Well, every spring we always fish at JangCheok Lake (Tex Mex knows the one!!) and we fished there yesterday. I fished out of my inflatable boat this year as the water levels are way too low to launch my portabote 

It was like summer out there, it was sunny and reached around the 80 degree mark with water tempatures at 65 degrees early morning and and 73 degrees in the heat of the day.

I took a photo of every fish I caught so that I could count them and I managed to catch 29 total. Most of them were 14 inches to 16 inches which needless to say was not big enough to win or even be in the top 3. The biggest caught was 18 inches by a guy fishing from the bank!!  As you’ll see from the photos, about 95% of the fish were caught on a Neko rig, but I did get a couple on a wacky senko and a hard jerk bait.

The fish were in post spawn phase, the water was crystal clear and I could see the old beds in about 4 feet of water. It was cool, this was the first bass beds I have ever seen, unfortunately all the big girls had already spawned out and gone…there’s always next year!!

Here’s some photos.

From Hunter Dave:

Between being very busy this winter and all the exercises lately, the rug rat and I hadn’t had any opportunities to fish yet this year. With spring break coming, we decided to book a family vacation in Guam at the Pacific Islands Club resort. I sneakily used this opportunity to book an offshore fishing trip from the marina on the Guam Naval Base. After complying with the family stuff like parasailing, snorkeling, sailing, windsurfing, jet skiing, diving, etc, my turn came around. Unfortunately the wife and daughter weren’t feeling too good the morning of the trip, so I had to go it alone. Probably was a good thing since it was a little rough with 4-6 foot seas by the time we were heading back in. We went out in the 23 ft center console and started trolling for Wahoo right outside Apron harbor to no avail. We then went further past the drop off and started trolling for Mahi-mahi and yellow fin under working birds. That pattern quickly paid off as we hooked into our first double of the morning. We did so well and there was no way I could use all the meat that I shortened our trip from six to four hours. We had 12 hookups and was able to boat 8 nice Mahi-mahi over about a two and a half hour span. I definitely filled that fishing void for a little while and had some outstanding sashimi to boot. We ate like kings that night. I have to say that the snorkeling over there was fantastic. Almost makes me want to get stationed there. We were all a little sad to come back to Korea.