Fishing Korea & Tennessee

I drove out to the river last Saturday to check out the ice and snow, and witnessed a rare event when a small deer ran out in front of me and crossed the road.  It was only the third one I’ve seen over here (in the wild) in eight years.  Since traffic was light, I immediately parked on the side of the road and jumped out in an attempt to snap a pic, but by that time it had run off into the brush and all that was left were its tracks in the snow.     

It’s not even January yet and I’m already getting cabin fever!  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you all!!   

My good friends Ron and Ruben went out a few weeks ago and landed these really nice looking snakehead.  Nice going guys!!  So that’s what they look like!  I wouldn’t know!!   

Ron headed out to the Snakehead lake this morning.  He had a whole bunch of hits, had one break his 30 pound braid, and unlike Nomad and I last weekend, he actually managed to get one on the shore.    Nice looking fish Ron! 

Here are some great pics sent to me from my good friend Bill.  He and a bunch of guys decided to make the trek to Andong, and it looks like it paid off for them.  Wish I could have been there fellas!!   

Here’s Mike B. with a nice hawg: 

Mike B., TK and Rob, getting their groove on:

And last but not least, here’s Mr. Bill with a nice looking Andong bass:

I asked Bill if he had any pictures of the Bass Master Ron with any fish, and he said “nope, because he didn’t catch any.”    Just joking Ron!! 

I found myself with a few free hours last night, so I did what any man who loves to fish would do, and went fishing.  This is one of my favorite lakes in Korea, not because I’ve caught a bunch of lunker bass out of it, but because I’ve always managed to catch at least some bass out of it, and it’s very scenic, serene and peaceful, especially this time of the year.  I’ve fished here for six or seven years, and during that time this lake and I have shared some pretty good memories together.  I helped rescue a small deer out of an irrigation ditch near the damn, and learned that even small deer are pretty powerful animals.  Ack!    I spent a Saturday afternoon sleeping on the bank when I was hungover several years ago.  I fished for an hour in the same spot trying to land what I just knew was a lunker bass, but ended up being suction from a pump that was teasing me and taking my line!  Doh!  Talk about feeling stupid!  LOL  Nomad and I used to hit this lake at daybreak in the summertime, in our waders, catch 20 bass or so, and be done by 8 AM and back home by 9.  I’ve never caught anything over two and a half pounds here, but think Nomad caught one close to four pounds a few years ago.    

Dinks was the name of the game Friday night.  I think I caught 12 or 14 in all, and none of them were over 2 pounds, but it was still a lot of fun.  Below are a few pics.  The last three were caught in the pitch black dark of night. 

With all that’s been going on in my personal life lately, it’s a wonder I’ve had time to go fishing at all.  I have however managed to squeeze in an hour or two here and there.  Yesterday, I went out to one of Nomad’s favorite spots and fished from the bank.  I caught 13 in about an hour and a half, and easily missed just as many.  They were on a feeding frenzy, but were all relatively small.  This is the biggest one from yesterday, and another: 

I went out again today for a bit, about an hour, and caught six dinks.  It was nothing like yesterday, but was still fun just to get out there for a little bit.  I caught the ones today in a three-piece suit and dress shoes by the way, so I should get bonus points, right?  LOL 

Took a trip down to Andong last weekend and as usual had a pretty good time.  The fishing wasn’t so great but we managed to catch a few, plus it’s always nice to go down there amongst good company and breath some fresh air for a weekend. 

I caught this one for my first ever top-water catch on a Waker minnow.  I didn’t measure it, but my live well is a little better than 19” wide, which means that this fish is probably pretty close to 50cm in length, but get this: it only weighed 2 pounds and 15 ounces.  We saw tons of bait fish all over the place so there’s plenty for them to eat.  I’m not for sure why this one, and a few others that were caught, were so skinny for their size. 

Other than that one and these three, it was pretty much dink city for the entire weekend.   

Steve’s new boat and some other random scenery.  Check out how high the water level is.  I’ve never seen Andong that full.   

Few additional pics from Steve:

The title pretty much sums up my day this past Saturday, but at least I got out on the water, something I haven’t been able to do much of this year unfortunately.  I got out there very early and was fishing by 5 AM, with the moon still high in the sky.  I thought that was pretty early, but Nomad and Ty were already out there and had probably caught a few by then too.  Animals!!  LOL 

I caught a whole bunch of small ones, but a couple of nice ones as well, all pretty much on a black/blue chatterbait with a blue craw trailer.  I caught a few on Senkos as well, but the main bait of the day was the ch-ch-ch-chatterbait. 

I also spent a lot of time in this area, which looked really bassy to me, but not even a hint of a bite.  In all I fished for about 11 hours, drank at least five bottles of water, and was dead to the world after I got back home around 5 PM.  I’d like to do it again this Saturday but it’s supposed to rain, plus these temperatures have just been brutal this week. 

Had a great day out on the water with Steve this past Saturday.  We didn’t catch a cubic butt-load of fish as Nomad and Ty did the day before, but a respectable 15 or so, and Steve managed to land a couple of really nice ones in the 3.5 pound range, one of which is pictured below.  I had a great time Steve, and hope to do it again sometime soon!! 

YT Fishing and KSA also sponsored a tournament on Sunday that drew a crowd to the PBA area unlike one I have never seen before.  I didn’t fish that day, but saw several nice 4+ pound fish brought in to the weigh-in station, and for anybody heading out this weekend, spinnerbaits were apparently the lure of choice for the big ones. 

I also had the pleasure of meeting Mike and his buddy for the first time out there on Saturday.  It was a pleasure to meet the both of you, and I hope to see you out on the water again sometime soon.   

Well the weekend that I had been planning for months finally came and we made the annual trek to Busan for the amberjack run. This year we bumped up the number from 5 to 8 people. The boat seemed to be large enough for 8 but we only fished 7 rods (me and Rene shared). They said we were a bit early this year, but that didn’t stop us. We still had a blast. We didn’t get the mother load like TexMex had in years past but we got a fine mess of fish. 27 amberjack, 2 mackerel, and one nice red snapper. We had two greater amberjacks hooked but they were both lost. The first spit the Korean style hook, the second broke the 20lb main line. It’s funny that the 15lb leader stood up but the main line busted and I just bought that spool less than a year ago. Oh well. I hope you enjoy the pics. I even got a nice sunrise one.

Went and stayed at a pension house this weekend with 2 other families on Modo (one of the islands north of Inchon Airport). One of the wife’s friends knew a guy with a boat there and he gave us a free trip out for some hand line fishing for sea bass. There were 3 of us guys with 4 kids so we weren’t there for some serious fishing. Just handlining for whatever would bite. We ended up with a descent mess. Sashimied up a few for a midday snack. the rest went on the grill or in the soup pot. Still it was pretty fun overall.

Leaving out tomorrow to Okinawa for a week. Hoping to get in an offshore trip for some "big uns"

I was finally able to get out and do a little bass fishing, but it took coming to the states to do it.   

This past weekend my brother-in-law took me out on Lake Barkley in Kentucky for a little summertime post-spawn drop fishing.  It started out kind of slow on Saturday morning with my brother-in-law catching a nice catfish on a jig, and both of us catching a few dinks.  So, after an hour or two of that we decided to hit another area, one that to me looked like the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but in reality was a nice little drop that had a slight bend in it, which thankfully for us proved to be one of the best spots on the lake (for bass fishing) that particular day.  For an hour and a half we hauled in largemouth after largemouth, on nearly every single cast, with at least ten of them being 4 pounds or better.  It was truly a phenomenal day, and one that I will remember for years to come. 

Oh, and by the way, I bought a new camera too. 

Here are a few pics:

Wait a minute, that’s not a bass! 

Well the best made plans always have a way of going sour if you know what I mean. I had been planning for weeks to camp at Idong and fish at night with the catfish rods baited with live bluegill. We went to Idong Wednesday and it was WAY down. The water was dirty, smelly and just horrible. I have never seen it like that. Neither me nor my daughter wanted to stay and I don’t think I could have caught a bluegill if I tried. We went home and I quickly changed gears for a beach trip. We went back to Taean National Seashore and camped at Mongsanpo beach campground. It was pretty fun. While there I got a few sunset pix. I also checked out the harbor for some possible deep sea fishing info. The comercial boats were coming in loaded with some big fish. Got a few promising phone numbers. We’ll see if that pans out. We woke up the next morning and headed back up to Gungpyeong. I had noticed on Google that the harbor there was about done. I hadn’t fished there in over a year and a half. When I arrived, things had changed quite a bit. There is now a HUGE fish market there. Plus they constructed an American style fishing pier there. A very nice large Y-head pier jutting out from the harbor wall and it was free. I couldn’t pass it up, so we fished for a few hours. It reminded me of fishing on the Gulf Coast. I haven’t seen anything like this before in Korea. We had a few bites on cut squid, but no one was really catching anything except for small bait stealers. We then went and fished the rocks on the other side of the seawall where we had done well before and began to slay the small flatheads. My daughter caught about 2 dozen in an hour (3-6 inches). It got me thinking that maybe we shoud go there in the afternoon and load up on some small flatheads for bait and take them to the new pier for a night trip. The new pier was a pleasant surprise. At only 55 min from the house, I can see me using that a few times. I bet it gets CROWDED on the weekends though. Anyway the fishing wasn’t so great, but I got even more phone numbers in Gungpyeong as well. Soon I will find a decent offshore charter close by without having to drive all the way to Busan.

Dave

• Date: June 21st, 2009
• Entry Fee: 50,000 Won
• Deadline for Entry: Must be paid in full by June 10th, 2009 or you will lose your slot
• KSA has allotted 20 slots for us Waegooks, so if you’re interested contact KSA Pro Pete Hart ASAP at petehart8@yahoo.com
  • Pete will need your name, SSN and DOB for identity theft insurance purposes 

That’s the skinny.  Pete can fill you in on the specifics.