Fishing Korea

How my week has been going:

Dinks to the left of me.  Dinks to the right of me.  No matter what I throw; Senkos, Vibrashocks or spinnerbaits, it’s been dinks, dinks dinks.  Which is still better than getting skunked, I must say.

Ty sent me some pictures of a recent outing that he and Jim had along the Pyeongtaek river:

According to Ty, all bass were caught on Senkos (green, if I remember right).  They also tried other lures such a crankbaits and spinnerbaits, with no luck.  Call me psychic, but something tells me there’s a fish fry in their immediate future.  Nice bass, fellas!

It amazes me to no end that after all these years of fishing for bass, how little I actually know about these fish.  This morning when I got to the river, I shone my flashlight into the water and saw that it was quite stained so I thought, “there’s no way the bass are going to be able to see a Senko, today is a perfect day for spinnerbaits and chatterbaits.”  Ha!  Wrong answer, thank you for playing!

Not a single hit on spinnerbaits or chatterbaits, but I did catch five on Senkos – the above two were the biggest of the bunch.  I really wanted to measure/weigh the one on the right because that was a decent fish but it was gut-hooked and it took me a while to remove the hook so I wanted to get the fish back into the water as quick as possible.  So the moral of this story is; if you want to know anything about bass fishing or bass behavior, don’t ask me – instead, get a subscription to Bass Master magazine.

But it sure felt like it!  The bass were present and accounted for, and definitely in the mood this morning.  I’m not even going to attempt to come up with any theories or speculations why the fishing has been so good this week because to be honest, I have no idea and every time I think I have a clue as to why these fish do anything, I’m usually wrong.  I’m just happy to be a part of it all.  I’m not even sure how many I caught this morning; but it was at least ten, most of them dinks.

The above fish were the biggest caught on Senkos; 4 and 5-inch, black and black with blue flakes which have been my most productive colors to date.  I was happy with those fish; quite ecstatic, actually, but it didn’t stop there.

And the best part is that I remembered Tuesday’s lesson and didn’t try to pick the fish up with the line.  I also need to tighten the drag down a wee bit on my baitcaster because this guy was taking out line pretty good when he went to make his runs and it took me a while to reel him in.  And you’ll notice that he hit a white/red spinnerbait.  All in all, a pretty good morning.

It was quite foggy near the river this morning, and a little chilly as well but the bass didn’t mind the weather.  Well, the dinks didn’t mind, I should say, as they were out in force.  I caught seven, with this being the biggest of the bunch, all on 4 and 5-inch Senkos, black and black with blue flakes.  I spent about an hour throwing a white/red Vibrashock, determined to catch a fish on it but that ended up being a waste of time.  I hope the trend continues, because the bass have been a lot more active the last few days.

I started out with Senkos while it was dark because if there’s one thing I don’t feel comfortable with yet, it’s using a baitcaster in the dark.  I like to see where the lure is so I can start applying my thumb to slow it down before it hits the water which of course helps prevent overruns.  That’s a little hard to do in complete darkness when I’m lucky to see where I’m walking so Senkos it is.

As you can see, the dinks are still out there and that’s what I was catching on Senkos, both on the 5-inch and 4-inch sizes, both black and black with blue flakes.

As soon as it was light enough to see, I switched to a white/red Karu Lures Vibraschock for about 30 minutes, with no takers so I changed rods and started throwing my favorite, a white/red spinnerbait and after a few casts, I was rewarded with this bass.  If you look close, you can see that there’s no line attached to the lure and that’s because I violated one of the cardinal rules of fishing; you do NOT pick up the fish using the line.  You bring the fish close and then bend down and lip it.  I know this.  I’ve learned it the hard way in the past but in the excitement of bringing in a fish, I threw what I’ve learned out the window and grabbed the line and picked the fish up.  The bass shook itself and the line snapped, with the fish falling into the water.  Fortunately, I was able to grab it before it swam off with my spinnerbait in its mouth.  And, I guarantee you that in the not-too-distant future, in the heat of battle, I’ll forget and do the same thing again.

I wish I could start out every week like this:

46 centimeters, 3 pounds, 2 ounces.  Caught on a 5-inch Senko, black with blue flakes, about 25 yards out in pretty deep water.  I caught 6 others, but they were all like this one:

Pretty good way to start the week

Dinks continue too be the flavor of the day, and this morning was no different except that I caught one on a spinnerbait.  I went out the last 3 days; Monday I hit Idong lake and caught 5 dinks, yesterday morning I fished the river and caught 5 dinks and this morning I fished the river again and you guessed it, 5 dinks.  That beats getting skunked but where oh where are the bigger bass?  Still hanging out in deeper waters?

The bass must like Fridays as much as I do because they were definitely biting this morning; unfortunately six out of the seven fish I caught were dinks.

This one, caught on a black, 5-inch Senko, is a little better size than what I’ve been catching out there lately.  The fish hit so light though, that I thought I had yet another dink on, that is until I set the hook.  On another note, I can’t get enough of this weather; that in itself is worth getting up for and getting out there nice and early at every opportunity.  Now if we could just get some of those awesome sunrises in there, I’d be all set!

Someone asked me if I had stopped fishing and the answer is no, I haven’t.  It’s just been incredibly tough out there lately.  In between the rainy spells, windy days and stained water conditions, I’ve also had to put up with carp muttons being camped out in the spots I like to fish, complete with their arrays of 10 or more poles, spread out all over the place.  To top it all off, it’s been dink city out there the last few weeks.

Believe it or not, these two that I caught this morning (on black, 4-inch Senkos) are probably the biggest bass I’ve landed lately.  I’ve been going out every chance I have, but with the weather and fishing conditions being less than favorable, and the bass not being in a biting mood, I’ve been spending a lot of time practicing with my various baitcasters – to the point where it feels like I’m getting the dreaded fishing elbow in my right arm.  The good news is that the weather has been absolutely gorgeous the last few days; fall is in the air and hopefully, the bass will start returning to the shallows to feed in the near future.  I’ll be waiting for them.

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but the fishing has been pretty sporadic; the rain, wind, heat and general disinterest the bass have shown when I did venture out haven’t given me much, if anything, to write about.  This morning was a little better, at least I had a couple of bites and the weather was also decent; cooler and finally, no wind!

The first fish was caught on a black, 5-inch Senko, the second on a white/red spinnerbait* and the last one on a black, 4-inch Senko.  As you can see, someone had a kimbab party over the weekend and left some of their lunch behind…I had a grapefruit in my bag for breakfast so I passed on the kimbab

*Steve, I already lost one of the spinnerbaits you made for me when I snagged it in the rocks, so I’m saving the rest for when I fish somewhere where I won’t have to worry about getting them snagged every cast.

I’ll let the pics speak for themselves:

Mother nature in all her glory.

Of course, I also go fishing to catch fish but being able to witness a sunrise like the one today absolutely makes my day complete.  As for the fishing, it was more dinks today as you can see by the pic on the left; that was the biggest one I landed.  Even though I had a stiff wind in my face, I also threw a spinnerbait for a while and managed to lose not one, but two bass when they jumped and threw the lure.  One was only about 1/2 a pound, and I must have hit the fish in the head because that one hit the lure the second it hit the water; I never even had a chance to start reeling.  The second fish was somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3 pounds, and when that one jumped and threw the lure, it irked me just a tad .  I know, I should be using a trailer hook but that river is so full of snags that I really don’t want to add yet another item that can get hung up on a rock, net or rope.  I lose enough lures out there as it is.  KMA claims we’re in for some heavy rain over the next day or two so I have a feeling it’ll be a few days before I get another chance to get back out there again.

I almost stayed in bed this morning because I’ve been pretty tired the last few days but hey, it’s Friday and what a better way to start the weekend than some EMB?  I started out by catching even more dinks, so I switched to a spinnerbait, determined to stick with it, bites or no.

Wise choice   That’s one of the nicer fish I’ve caught in a while and I’ll say it again; I love catching bass on spinnerbaits.  I also tried some chatterbaits and crankbaits, but no luck on those. If you want to catch your fill of dinks, this is the time to go…there are tons of dinks and baby bass all along the shore/rocks and  I was getting a hit on almost every cast with a Senko.