Although I know better, I keep going back to this lake for some reason; maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, LOL. I was off work today, so this morning I drove out to Idong to see if I could change my luck – I know there are still some decent fish in that lake. I got there early enough to get set up and watch another nice sunrise:
Idong is such a scenic lake, and relatively clean so it’s always a pleasure to fish here. I do catch a lot more and bigger bass in the river, but that river is a cesspool; the water is dirty, the shores are littered with garbage (and that’s not counting all the garbage floating in the water) and it even smells bad at times so even though I don’t catch the same quality/quantity fish out of Idong (anymore), I do love coming out here just for the scenery. Oh, and unlike the river, Idong isn’t shoulder to shoulder with carp fishermen either 
I did a double take when I saw the above boat; that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that in this lake and have no idea what it’s doing tied off to the cliffs.
Oh you want to hear about the fishing, right? I caught well over 20 bass today, but aside from two of them, they were all dinks 
(and the 2nd biggest wasn’t far removed from dink-hood).
The bass in the 3rd pic is one of the ones I caught (on a small chatterbait) while trying for bluegill. I must have walked a good 1/2 mile or more using a rooster tail, mepps spinner and small chatterbait, just trying to catch one single bluegill but it was not to be. Rob was out there with me about 2 years ago when I walked the shore with a white rooster tail and caught over 60 slab-sized bluegill…no idea what happened since then. The last two pics are about the average size fish I caught today.
The water in Idong is low, but not low enough for me to walk on shore around the cliffs you see in the picture of that big boat above; so instead, I had to walk what we call “the hill of death” – you can’t really tell from this pic, but it’s pretty high and steep as well and if you go up with your fishing gear, you’ll know how healthy your heart is once you get to the top.
Here are a couple of pics (and a panorama) of the cove in it’s present state; as you can see the water has dropped quite a bit since the last time I was out there. This morning I tried spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, a jig (which got snagged and is now gone 
), Senkos and Neko rigs (for bass, that is). The only thing I caught bass on (not counting the small chatterbait) were Senkos and Neko rigs (thanks, Steve), which I started using once the Senko bite started slowing down. Will I fish Idong again? Yeah I will and I know it, despite the drop in the bass and bluegill populations. It’s a beautiful (and clean!) lake, it’s only 15 minutes from my house and these days, very few, if any people are coming to the spots that I like to fish. Peace and quiet, a nice sunrise and if I’m lucky, a few fish to boot. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Nice going Nomad, and great pics!
By the way, I saw that boat on Monday and did the same double-take. WTF? My guess is that the ski rental place is going to run some type of cruises this summer.
Great photos and catches Nomad, the first 2 fishies don’t look very dinkish to me.
Glad the neko rig worked out for you Nomad, hopefully I can catch a few bass with it next week.
Rob,
Ack! Cruises on Idong…just what that lake needs. Well, they already have the water skiing, and now those cabins in the cove, why not a cruise shipt and some swan boats while we’re at it? Blah!
Steve,
One thing I did discover today though is that I have to use a very thin line with that rig. I was using the neko rig on my ultralight rig, which has some 4-year old 4-pound test line and they were slamming that neko rig pretty good but because the line is so old, I had breakage after breakage. I then put a neko rig on my senko rod, which has 10-pound line, but then I couldn’t get them to bite anymore. That water is crystal clear so I’m pretty sure that the line diameter had a lot to do with it.
Nowadays I use the neko on 8lb fluorocarbon but used to fish it for years on 10lb fluorocarbon. I don’t I have ever gone as low as 4lb for bass fishing, the lowest I use is 6lb on my dropshot spinning rod and I feel nervous with that.
I was considering camping over there on the north side. Do you all think it is allowed?
Dave
Steve,
I think that if you have good quality line, 4 or 6 pound test should do fine; as long as the drag is set right. 4-year old line, however, won’t do the trick, as I found out today. LOL
Dave,
My friends and I (yes, I do have friends
) have camped out in the cove and on the north end a few times overnight, there’s no problem with that at all, as long as you’re not on someone’s rice fields 
Nomad,
Nice fish. It’s not only about the fish you catch but also the scenery. That is one reason I hated that nasty stinking lake between Yongsan and Osan (Don’t remember the name). It held big fish but that lake was nasty and stunk bad. Koreans just never seem to amaze me. They have a beautiful country with lots of lakes and rivers. If they took care of them it would be no different than what I see out here in Colorado. I’ll post another Colorado fishing trip I took out here recently with my youngest boy. He ended up catching the biggest trout of the day, go figure.
Tex Mex,
That’s Shingal lake and yes, is has some huge bass in it; John caught several between 5 and 6 pounds last spring.
Please do post your trips, I love seeing those pics.