Totally unrelated to fishing, unless you were out in a boat when this thing touched down or you were one of the many carp muttons that line the banks of the Anseong River:
Yes sir, a real funnel cloud, the first I’ve ever seen in Korea. It touched down somewhere over the Anseong River (looked like out toward Dunpo, near Asan Bay) and then disappeared shortly after.
19. That’s the number of snakeheads Rob and I missed today 
. Check out the pond we fished:
We were both using braid with Spro frogs and we were definitely fishing the frogs correctly because in about 2 1/2 hours, we got 19 fish to come up and take the lure, and most of them grabbed it and took it under (a couple came up, hit the frog and left it alone or immediately spit it back out). We waited till we felt the fish on the line and then set the hook but every time, they got off. I have no idea what what we were doing wrong because even with the fish that felt like they were on after hookset, and they put up a fight, they ended up getting off somehow. And it wasn’t from not setting the hook hard enough because on one, I set the hook so hard that I hurt my wrist. There are some big snakehead in this pond; the first one I hooked into jumped out of the water and looked to be about 2 feet long. If anyone wants to chime in to let us know what the secret of catching these fish is, please do so because all Rob and I could do was laugh after missing fish after fish after fish. This was definitely an interesting fishing trip out, to say the least.
First of all; a sad, sad sight indeed.
See that? “I don’t see anything,” you say to yourself. That’s right, because right there is where the SS Netcutter and her batteries, trolling motor and other accessories used to be stored. Ty came over yesterday and took her away and she’s all his now. I hope I can get one more trip out with him before our stuff gets packed up but I’m a little doubtful with this weather we’ve been having.
Now, let’s get to the illness, the fishing sickness which overtook me in the last 4 years. When I tell people I have “a lot of fishing stuff” they don’t realize that by “a lot” I mean A LOT. Consider the following evidence:
Seriously. Does one man really need all these rods? I’ve taken the liberty of counting them for you. 19 rods total, with 16 of them having reels on them. WTF?!? Again; seriously, why does one man need that many rods? I’m not even going to tell you about the 4 or 5 reels I have sitting off to the side (And dude, what’s up with all those hats?).
Exhibit #2:
Every one of those drawers is filled to overflowing with, you guessed it, fishing tackle of some sort or another from 2 big drawers full of spinnerbaits, drawers full of Senkos, crankbaits, frogs, line, and other assorted tackle. There’s more tackle in those drawers alone than most people will use in a lifetime of fishing but I still find myself browsing at the Bass Pro or some other website, looking for yet MORE STUFF.
Last but not least:
Who doesn’t have a closet full of fishing stuff? Yes, everything you see in there is somehow related to fishing from more tackle, lures, waders, worms and you name it. And let’s not forget the tackle bags I have sitting off to the side; one for the boat (which probably has enough stuff in it to go fishing for an entire season) to my other bag, which I only use for EMB (gotta travel light for EMB). It’s gotten to the point where every time a package arrives, my wife asks me, “more fishing stuff?” and then walks away, shaking her head. LOL What will happen when I move into a real house with a 2-car garage, and buy myself one of these? Why, I guess I’ll have to buy more stuff, eh?
Unlike yesterday, I made it out of bed this morning and managed to get in some fishing before work. But first, how about some sunrise pics?
A good carp. 
I got the double fluke rig fever yesterday after watching that KVD video of Kevin tearing them up on a double fluke rig. Why does everything look so damned easy when KVD is doing it? I’m honestly beginning to think he could catch bass with nothing more than a rubber band and a paper clip.
Good thing I had my trusty 4” Senkos (black with blue flake, of course) or it may have been a long morning because the bass wanted nothing to do with the double fluke rig (although I do think that’s more for clear water and the river is getting quite murky due to the algae stuff that grows every summer – or, I wasn’t fishing it correctly, which is very possible.). The bass also had no interest in a Zoom worm, spinnerbait, or chatterbait. But I say; if they want Senkos, give ‘em Senkos. This sure was a nice way to end the week 
.
Yesterday, I got to wondering what would happen if I fished a finesse worm or wacky Senko under a bobber so this morning, I gave it a try.
I forgot my wacky tool to put the o-rings on Senkos so I didn’t try those but I did catch the above on a green finesse worm with black flakes, fished about 2 feet under a bobber. It’s not a method I’d fish every day as it’s pretty boring but it is something else to consider if the fish are being finicky and there are too many rocks or nets in the water to dropshot. Aside from that one bass, I caught one other really small dink on a 4” Senko and once again, that was it for the morning.
Going by first impressions, I thought today was going to be a great day. I caught the one above on my very first cast, on a 4” Senko, black with blue flakes. But after that, it went downhill and I got dinked the rest of the morning. And today I went all out; I threw a jig, a shallow-running crankbait, a spinnerbait, a beaver tail on a jighead, Zoom worms, Yamamoto Kut-tail worms and even a chatterbait. The good news is; I didn’t get snagged and didn’t lose one single lure out there, which is a miracle in itself.
I had every intention of heading out yesterday, since there was a front rolling through in the morning. But. I woke up in the middle of the night and the bedroom was pitch black; there was a power outage so I thought it was one of those temporary outages and that the power would come back on in a few minutes and I went back to sleep. I woke up again later around 3, and the power was still off. I really wanted to go fishing but the combination of no coffee and having to take a cold shower in the dark didn’t appeal to me at all . Anyway, to make a long story short, the power was still off at 5:30 so I did what any husband would do; I woke up my wife, who called our apartment office, and they in turn dispatched a very sleepy and rather grumpy electrician. He fiddled with our transformers and got the power back up so I got my coffee and a hot shower before I headed off to work.
This morning, I got up at 3 (yes, at 3) and was at the river before 4:30. It was still dark out, the river was like glass, there was no wind or current – but there was a carp mutton set up right where I usually fish…so I had to fish another spot.
I threw everything except the kitchen sink and if I would have had one handy, I would have tried that too because the bass just weren’t interested today. The one above hit my spinnerbait early on but after that, it was slim pickings except for a few other dinks which I caught on plastic lures (Senkos and Zoom worms). Not the best of mornings but at least I got out there today!
Yesterday, as I was casting a Big Ika at a point, the Ika went past some floating weeds and as I was pulling it across the vegetation, a bass came up and went after it but missed it, so a light bulb went off over my head and I thought “FROG!!!” So this morning I brought my frog rod and wasted spent a good 30 minutes throwing that frog for all it was worth, with nothing to show for it. LOL. Then I started out with my trusty 4” Senkos and caught a couple of dinks but then it got bad; they started releasing water and a good current picked up, which of course, totally turned off the bite like it always has. I almost went in to work at that time but decided to hang out and wait. In the meantime I threw Senkos, Ikas, Zoom ‘Ol Monster 10.5” worms and a spinnerbait with absolutely no bites. What made it really bad was that yesterday, Rob put the onus on me and I wanted to come out today and catch a nice one for him.
And hot diggity, I did!!! 4 pounds even, and just a little over 51 cm. And what’s that sticking out of that Big Momma’s mouth? Why you’re right; it’s a Zoom black curly tail worm 
. Right around 6:15, the current stopped so I put on the same type worm that did me right yesterday and it worked again this morning. I have to say, that was the strongest fish I’ve ever caught out of that river. I have my drag set about midway, so that a 2 pounder or so can take it out and this Momma was taking drag and fighting for what seemed like an hour. When she jumped the first time, I knew I had a really nice fish on and I kept worrying that she would run down into the rocks but by the grace of God, she was content on heading for deep water and performing aerial acrobatics. Yeah baby! Another Big Momma and Rob, this one’s for you.
So I managed to get up again this morning and what a difference a few days make. In the spot I fish, the water is the clearest I’ve ever seen it since I started heading out there a few years ago – visibility must have been at least 3 feet or more which is amazing for that river. Just last Friday, the water looked like chocolate milk.
I started out with 4” Senkos (black with blue flakes) but all I was catching were dinks. I think I caught 5 or 6, the above was the biggest of the lot. In the spot I fish, I’m pretty confident that on most mornings, there’s at least one decent bass cruising the shallows, looking for a meal but the trick is to figure out what they want. This morning, they certainly didn’t want Senkos, Big Ikas or Zoom ‘Ol Monster worms.
Aha…what they wanted was a black Zoom regular curly tail worm, fished nice and slow – and this bass took the worm on the 2nd cast, in the same exact area I’d been chucking Senkos and Big Ikas for the last 45 minutes. That made my morning and after that I started throwing spinnerbaits and again, nothing. So far, this has been a tough year for spinnerbait bites out there. I think I’ve only caught a couple of fish on a spinnerbait so far and it isn’t for lack of trying either. Maybe I need to switch over to a different color since I’ve been using the white/red at that spot for the last 3 years.
Here’s a nice bass that Mike’s friend, Sang, caught over at Dae Ho Man on a topwater lure.
I’d say that’s a good 5 – 6 pounds, if not more. WTG, Sang!
Yesterday afternoon, I was busy checking every weather source possible to see if it would be worth taking the boat out one more time but no matter where I checked, they were calling for some pretty good winds today – so I decided to unpack all the boat stuff from the car and just head out and fish from shore this morning. When I first got to the river, the water was like glass and I had thoughts of the SS Netcutter but 30 minutes later, the wind did pick up and continued to pick up the entire time I was out there. And with those clouds, it was quite chilly too, so not taking the boat ended up being a good decision after all.
I caught 4 dinks and this nice one, on a 4” Senko, black with blue flakes. I thought that maybe this was the fish that broke my line the other morning since I caught it in the same exact spot but I checked and there was no hook, line or Senko attached to this one, except the one I had caught it with this morning. I didn’t see another hole in the fish’s mouth either. I do love me my Big Mommas and this has been a good year for them so far 
. What made me really happy was that for once I had my wits about me. I had gotten snagged a bit earlier and tightened my drag down all the way so I could break the line off and as soon as I felt this fish on and realized it was a nice one, I remembered that my drag was tightened down all the way and I managed to loosen it up real fast before I ended up with another “the one that got away” tale of woe. I have to say, this has been a good week of vacation time and I got some decent fishing in there. Setting up the boat and tearing it down by myself isn’t my favorite pastime in the world but on the other hand, being the only person in the boat has its rewards as well. If this is a taste of what retirement will be like, bring it on!
LOL, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to what turned out to be quite the interesting and eventful day. But first, I lied. I said that I was only going to take a crankbait rod today, but when I went down to the car last night to bring the other rods into the house, I had a vision of me being out there today, chucking crankbaits around for hours and hours and having nothing to show for it except sore elbows so needless to say, I ended up bringing the entire arsenal 
. I remembered to set the alarm clock last night and like Monday, I was up at 3, on the road by 3:45 and on the water by 5 and once again, it turned out to be a beautiful day, weather-wise. No wind at all until sometime around 1, and then it was just a light wind at that and for most of the day, the skies were overcast. While I was setting the boat up and getting the stuff out of the bag, I had the net in my hand but I thought “Ah, leave it here, it’ll just take up more space in the boat and you probably won’t need it anyway.” Another wise decision by yours truly and yes, I’m being sarcastic.
I started out fishing the same area where I do my EMB, and on the very first cast, I caught a bass.
This one, actually. Three casts later, I caught a dink, and I moved down about 25 yards to a point I like to fish. I threw my 4” Senko towards shore and as I was reeling it in, I felt a light tap. I waited a few seconds and when I felt another light tap, I thought it was another dink and set the hook only to find out it was no dink at all but a Big Momma. I fought the fish and slowly brought her away from the rocks and closer to the boat and that’s when it hit me…The NET WAS IN THE CAR, and Ty wasn’t there to lip the fish for me. I got the fish all the way to the boat and then I made the colossal mistake of thinking the fish was tired out so I grabbed the line with one hand, intending on pulling the fish close enough for me to lip it with the other hand. Unfortunately, the bass had other ideas and as soon as it was about 10 inches from the boat, it made a run under the boat and the line snapped 
. And yeah, I felt like a real dumbass for making such a rookie mistake. I was bummed out enough to send Rob a 5:30 text letting him know what I had just done, but I didn’t really feel that bad, considering I had already had 3 bites in the first 30 minutes and one was a Big Momma to boot…I had a feeling it was going to be another good day.
The above two pics show the type area I was fishing today and all the bass were holding super close to shore, right up against the rocks.
And it was another great day…today I kept count; 29 bass total. Now, most of them looked like these fellas:
But I did catch a few that were decent enough:
I know, I know, “what about the crankbaits?” you ask. Fair enough…I threw crankbaits for an hour and a half with not a single bite and let me tell you, that got old fast and it was all I could do to stick with it that long. Had I only taken a crankbait rod, it would have been a really short day. Like Tim said in his comment yesterday, stick with what works. And today, the only lures I caught fish on were 4” Senkos (black with blue flakes) and a 10.5” Zoom ‘Ol Monster worm. I also tried jigs, crankbaits, Big and Fat Ikas, drop shot, and a black 7” Zoom worm.
Oh and check this out…on my way back to the ramp, I was cruising along, having a relaxing smoke when I saw something swimming in the water, heading right at the boat.
That sucker actually came at the boat right in the middle and looked like he was going to try to come aboard on the left side! I cranked the trolling motor so that I would scoot past the snake because, well, I just don’t think there would have been enough room in the SS Netcutter for me and a snake. And me not wearing my life vest. LOL
And, I took another pic of a bird 
I have to say, so far this week has been most excellent. I’ve taken the boat out 2 days; the weather was perfect both days, and the bass were cooperating quite nicely. I got another solid 8 hours of fishing in today, and the only reason I quit when I did was because I had covered a lot of water today and I was worried that my battery was getting low. Had I known the fishing and weather was going to be that good, I would have brought the second battery and instead of typing this, I’d still be out there, fishing. You know, I could get used to this quite easy and I know what I’ll be doing every day it’s not raining once I retire. Yes sir.
After sitting there and feeling sorry for myself for having overslept this morning, I finally decided that since my waders and frog rod were already in the car, I’d at least head on over to Idong for a few hours to fish the creek channel under the 45 overpass and also check out what the cove looks like.
The lake is still pretty high; in the creek channel (which is usually about dry by now) I went out 10-15 feet and was already up to my waist and it kept getting deeper so I didn’t manage to go out as far as I wanted but it was good enough for me to be in range of plenty of vegetation and trees. I was throwing a Spro frog and those things sure do cast a long way! I spent a good hour throwing that frog and after about 30 minutes, when that bass came up and exploded on that frog, well; you can watch the videos, you can read the articles and forums and you can get advice from other fishermen but all that went right out the window because I about sh!t my pants, instinct took over and I went to set that hook, which of course, had me with nothing but a frog on the end of my line. LOL That was the only hit I had on the frog and after about an hour, I went back to the car and got my Senko rod and managed to catch 4, 2 dinks, one that was maybe a pound and one that was around 2 pounds (I can never get over how long and skinny the bass are in that lake). And of course my camera was sitting right on my desk where I left it when I was transferring the fishing pics from yesterday. I really wanted to get some pics of that creek channel because it sure looks good in there…with a boat or float tube it would be perfect. LOL, I just remembered that the header pic I’m using for the blog right now is one small part of that creek channel.
I also drove over to the cove to check it out and it’s at early-spring levels, completely full. Usually by now it’s half empty due to the water being drawn down for the irrigation. I didn’t even bother fishing in the cove at all, I’ll come back and check it out again in a few weeks or so to see if the water is down any.
I plan on taking the boat out again tomorrow (Thursday is looking iffy with the winds and rain forecast) and my plan, right now, it to use nothing but crankbaits and rattle traps because those have been my nemesis since I started fishing over here. It’ll be crankbaits or bust, so there may not be much of a post tomorrow LOL.
So I got up at 3, made coffee, had a couple of smokes and was on the road by 3:45. I arrived at the river around 4:15, took my time putting the boat together, and I was on the water before 5. The river was like glass, with not even a hint of a breeze, and it stayed like that just about the entire 8 hours I was out there. For most of the day, it was overcast with pleasant temps. And the bass were biting…I stopped counting at 20 but I know I caught at least 30 bass. “Damn, that sounds like the perfect day!” you say. Well, yeah, except for one small, minor detail…all the bass looked like this:
Where oh where have my Big Mommas gone? Not sure if it’s post spawn, post front, the river being stained from the recent rains or if I didn’t have my mojo today. But. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining at all; I caught a butt-load of fish today and I had a blast out there, fishing and smoking to my heart’s content.
Just for kicks and to prove a point to myself, I started out fishing some weed beds where Ty and I killed them a few weeks ago; my theory was that the bass are long gone from there and yes indeedy, they are because I fished about 300 yards of weeds and not a single bite was to be had. After that I moved down river a ways, past the now defunct rock wall (I still get tears in my eyes when I see what they’ve done to our wall, Rob 
) and fished one stretch of rocks and trees but, instead of hit and run, I stopped at every spot that even remotely looked bassy, anchored, and fished there until I got a bite or caught a fish. I caught fish mainly on two rigs; a drop shot rig and also fishing a 4” Senko (black with blue flakes) weightless, as close to the rocks/trees as possible. I had one bite on the Big Ika, and absolutely no takers on spinnerbaits, wacky-rigged Senkos, jigs or rattle traps.
Oh, and I took a pic of a bird 
LOL Around 1:30, the sun came out and suddenly it got hot and I got tired and since the bite had tapered off, I started having visions of my big old water bed so I called it a day and was home by 2:30 and took a power nap. I just woke up a little while ago, made a big cup of coffee and now I’m ready for tomorrow!
I had my alarm set for 3:30 yesterday morning, but when it rang, I turned it off and promptly went back to sleep but when I saw how nice the river looked as I crossed the bridge on the way home from work yesterday, I made up my mind to get my butt out of bed this morning. And I was rewarded with a beautiful morning; cool temps, no wind, no other people out there at all and a nice sunrise to boot. It doesn’t get any better than that 
After making a couple of comments back and forth on this blog yesterday with Steve regarding Ikas, I went out with the intention of throwing a Big Ika this morning and that worked out pretty good for me:
Two hits, two fish. The first one swallowed the Ika, the second one, as you can see, crunched the Ika and actually tore it up a little bit. Both were caught on a Big Ika, black with blue flakes. Once I caught those two fish, I switched to a spinnerbait the rest of the time out there but didn’t have a single bite. All in all, a nice relaxing morning. I should start getting out there more often again 