I did it again, I went fishing in heavy rain and strong winds yet again, but this time I took my new boat. I was just soooo keen on getting the boat in the water for the first time I didn’t care what the weather was doing.
Long story short, the boat performed great even in the crap weather, I caught a few fish, albeit dinks and I got drenched to the bone.
The weather man was right for a change. Saturday’s forecast was calling for heavy rain showers, and that’s exactly what we got. I drove one hour to another new pond that I read about in the Lure and Fly magazine. I arrived at the pond at exactly 5:00am and that’s when the first heavy shower came, so I put on my rain suit and went for it. I caught 3 small bass on a black and blue buzzbait almost right away by casting it along the shoreline, the bass were holding really close in.
The as it got a little lighter, I could see around this new pond and I could see that there was a lot of floating slop in 2 corners of the pond, so I tied on one of my new Surecatch frogs (Mr Frog) and started running it across the surface of the slop, that’s when this nice bass decided he really wanted frog for breakfast and he hurled himself completely out of the water to get it, exciting stuff as this is my first frog bass of the year.
After that fish, the very heavy rain seemed to stop the fish biting so I moved to another spot where I caught a small bass on the frog before heading home extremely wet. I did have a few more hits on the frog which I either missed or the fish got off.
I was looking through the PASSO website last week and came across a boat for sale for a decent price. It turns out it was being sold by the same people/company where John recently bought his new boat, but this one was an older model.
I mentioned to the wife that I wanted it, and surprisingly she said yes, so I quickly transferred the $$$ before she had chance to change her mind, and by 5:00pm the very next day the boat was delivered 
It is just a basic 12 foot fiberglass hull with a deck and fitted livewell, so I will have to transfer all my stuff from my Portabote onto my new boat, which will be fun. Here’s a few photos from the site;
More photos to come as I get all my stuff transferred.
Last weekend was yet another Andong tournament weekend. For the Pro’s it was a 2 day tournament sponsored by my sponsor, ‘Surecatch Korea’, and for the Challenger Pro’s it was a 1 day tournament sponsored by Lureman, owned by Park MuSeok (more on him later 
).
This time I took my better half with me, which was a big mistake. We fished together on Saturday which was also my one and only practice day. The day started off well when I got a bite on almost my first cast of the day which ended up being this little dink;
That was the only fish I would land all day Saturday. The wife however didn’t disappoint as she always kicks my @$$, and today was no exception. She caught 3 keeper bass. Here’s 2 of them, with the last one being a very nice one indeed. It took her about 5 minutes to land.
Saturday’s weather was rather good, mostly cloudy with some sunshine mixed in (all the fish came during the cloudy times).
Then Sunday came, and the rain came down HEAVY all during the tournament, which I didn’t mind too much as it was better then blazing sunshine. I started the day throwing topwater baits and lost/missed 5 bass early on (at least 3 of them were decent keepers). That made me frustrated. A few hours went by without a single bite, then with 30 minutes or so to go until weigh in closed, I caught 2 nice bass and hurried to the weigh in.
Not good enough to win anything, but I came in 29th out of 69 boats and got some valuable points with these;
The winner of the Pro’s was Park MuSeok (Lureman Shop owner, FTV Bass fishing show host and my fellow Surecatch Korea Pro-staff). Here’s a couple of his very nice winning bass.
Pete and Ruben both caught fish during the tournament, but unfortunately Pete had to leave early on Sunday due to not feeling too good, but not before catching this nice big Andong bass on Saturday;
As always, it was another great weekend at Andong. Great food at the Saturday evening BBQ, great people and great times, and great beer of course. The weather turned out great great for the BBQ and those spending time at Andong, but for the fishing the weather could of been much better.
The weather on Saturday was great, cloudy skies and biting fish. Then at the end of the day the sun was shining. During Saturday night a big storm rolled through with heavy rain and thunder and lightening, which at one point blow all the lights out across the Andong bridge, scary stuff for those camping out in tents!! Sunday started off hot, humid and sunny from the word go and that difference for the day before made the fishing somewhat difficult.
Here’s some of my fish from Saturday;
And here’s a shot of my only fish caught on Sunday;
Now that my family has left Korea, I was able to get out on the water again, and it felt good, well, until I got sun burnt that is. It was supposed to be cloudy with some rain showers all day, but by lunchtime the sun was shining and the wind was blowing hard.
Luckily I was on the water by 6:30am with my inflatable boat and was able to catch a few bass before the weather got too tough. I caught 10 bass in total and 9 of them were caught on 5” senkos, both GY and copies, with the majority falling for the slower falling copy senkos. The other bass took my Surecatch crankbait.
Here’s some photos of the better fish, no dink pics;
I hit 3 ponds/lakes on Saturday morning before this rain storm hit home. With the cloudy skies, I decided to only throw buzzbaits all day (I say all day, but the rain came down very heavily at lunchtime, so I went home).
In total, I caught and landed 7 bass, had another 5 or 6 fall off the hook as I was lifting them out of the water and missed several other bites (I guess I should of used a trailer hook!!)
A lot of the bass were dinks, but here are the better ones.
Last Sunday May 16th was the 2nd Lureman Cup, Challenger Open (Rubber/electric powered Boat) tournament held on the Milyang River, just North West of Busan. (Lureman is a Korean lure internet store that is owned by KSA Pro angler Park MooSeok) – http://www.lureman.kr/
One of the main sponsors of this open tournament was Surecatch Korea (http://www.surecatch.co.kr/), and as I am a Pro-staff for Surecatch Korea, I attended as a representative wearing my full uniform to help out with the tournament.
Once the tournament was under way at 7:00am, the wife and I were able to have a few casts. I caught one little bass and lost a slightly bigger one on the hook-set.
Weigh in for the tournament was between 11:00am and 12:00 noon. There was around 30~40 boats in the tournament and I think that just about all them weighed in fish (3 fish limit). Some of the boats were team boats and a few of them were singles.
Here’s some of the fish caught and weighed in.
Here are the winners fish, which weighed over 3,500 grams.
And they won rods from Surecatch and Pure Fishing as well as a reel and a trophy.
There was a bunch of spot prizes given away to those that competed. Spot prizes were donated by Surecatch and Pure Fishing.
This past weekend at Andong (May 8th and 9th) was by far my best time I’ve ever had there, fishing wise. As I was fishing the KSA Challenger Pro tournament there on Sunday, I went up there on Saturday morning to fish the practice day. As always, I caught some great bass in practice that would of got me a great result had I caught them on the tourney day!!
Here’s the biggest bass from Saturday that weighed 2.83kg / over 6lbs on my digital scale and was over 50cm, I caught her on a buzzbait early in the morning.
I caught another 7 or 8 more bass on the Saturday and all of them were 40cm or over and all of them fell for a wacky rigged senko.
I even caught a pesky Keuri on a jerkbait
With my game plan worked out for the Sunday, I went out and caught 9 bass in the tournament, and again, all bass were over 40cm, but I couldn’t find another kicker like I got on the Saturday 
During the day, I managed to cull 2 times and weighed in 3 bass at 3,400g which was good enough to get me in 11th place overall – 1 place and 145g out of the money
Here’s some of Sunday’s smaller and culled bass, I don’t have any photos of my 3 keepers yet, I’m waiting for some photos to be posted on the KSA site.
I worked on Saturday morning, but I found a little spare time to have a few casts during the afternoon. I had a few bites that I missed and a dink that hung me up in some snags.
But I did manage to land this decent little guy on a 4” watermelon/red senko copy wacky rigged.
Right at the end of the day I hooked into a fish that felt like a good size, then all of a sudden, whatever it was woke up and started ripping line from my spinning reel, but my drag was too tight and it snapped my 6lb line right at the hook (cry, cry!!). I’m guessing it must of been a big carp or a snakehead, I guess we’ll never know.
Just to add a few photos of my my own from Saturday.
Thanks again Rob for getting me on the water and finding a few fish for Sunday. I hope I didn’t wear you out too much, lol, and that your ribs are feeling better.
Now for a few photos, sunrise first.
Now for a few fish.
After what seemed like a never ending winter, I finally got the boat out of it’s winter cover and onto the water.
Wednesday, the better half and I took the boat to a local lake for a few hours until the wind picked up and she got cold, lol. We caught a bunch of fish, a lot of dinks and a couple of nicer ones. The wife caught the biggest (again). All of my bass were caught on 5” watermelon/red senkos and the wife was using a 4” junebug senko copy.
Here’s my biggest
…..and here’s the wife’s nice 42cm bass
Then on Thursday, I took the boat out on my own to a different lake where I will be fishing on Sunday. The wind was very strong and the lake looked more like the ocean than a lake, but I managed to find a sheltered bank out of the strongest wind. I only caught one bass and missed a couple of other bites.
I caught this one using a Surecatch MP Craw
I went to Busan yesterday to visit my new sponsor, Surecatch to meet the good folks and pick up a few items for the upcoming KSA tournaments.
On my way home I stopped off at a lake that I will be fishing on the 21st with my Bass Club and wanted to check out the boat launching spots and water level. While I was there I decided to throw a lure or 2 and managed to land this little guy. Felt nice after a few skunks. Both photos are of the same fish.
With this amazing February weather we are having, I wanting to go fishing before this weekend’s rain got here (it’s actually raining and very windy as I type this!) so I went out yesterday (Wednesday). Everything was perfect; little or no wind, warm, rising water temperatures and sunny with some cloud. I thought I was in for a great day of fishing!
Obviously, the bass don’t read the same books and internet forums as we do.
I fished my favorite pond from 10:30am and never had a single bite in all the usual great spots. At 17:30pm as I was just about to call it a day I tried a spot that has never produced for me in the past and I caught this little fella on virtually my last cast of the day.
Day 1 of the 2010 Bassmaster Classic is over and KVD is sitting at the top of the table (no real surprises there).
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/classic/index
