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…
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- His first two pounder on his first fishing trip!
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- No matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t coax this one into drinking two more ounces of water or stretching another 1/2 centimeter.
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- Slightly longer than the first one but weighed 3 oz. less.
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- You can’t really see the measurements on this tiny ruler but those are size 10 1/2 shoes for comparison sake.
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.
By the way, isn’t all fishing FUN? 
Nice fish Mike, and congrats to your friend on his first catches!
I didn’t weight or measure any of the bigger ones I caught out of there last year, but I doubt that any of them were as big as your two. I did catch a 4.2 pound one on a spinner bait
off of Joe’s deck once, but that was at least four years ago. The biggest fish I’ve personally seen pulled out of the river was caught by a Korean girl (out at Joe’s place too), and it weighed 4.9 pounds.
There are definitely some nice fish in there, and I think they’re getting bigger as the years pass by too, which is amazing considering the pressure that’s out there these days.
WTG Mike and friend
Very nice fish, and if you can only catch 6 bass, then those are the 6 you want.
“(no matter how I tried to stretch it)”……LOL
Thanks for the post, Mike and here’s hoping more will follow. To echo what Rob and Steve said, nice fish! LOL, looks like I’m the only one not in the 50cm bass club yet but it’s certainly not for lack of trying